The Lord told me, “Tell the king and the queen mother, ‘Surrender your thrones, for your glorious crowns will be removed from your heads.

But there is little hope for you ever doing good, you who are so accustomed to doing evil. Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard remove its spots?

For the honor of your name, do not treat Jerusalem with contempt. Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it!

But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’”

But I will punish you as your deeds deserve,’ says the Lord. ‘I will set fire to your palace; it will burn up everything around it.’”

“‘Sure to be judged is the king who builds his palace using injustice and treats people unfairly while adding its upper rooms. He makes his countrymen work for him for nothing. He does not pay them for their labor.

The Lord says, “I have heard what those prophets who are prophesying lies in my name are saying. They are saying, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’

Those prophets are just prophesying lies. They are prophesying the delusions of their own minds.

So I, Jeremiah, tell you, “Each of you people should say to his friend or his relative, ‘How did the Lord answer? Or what did the Lord say?’

So if a prophet prophesied peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

The descendants of Jacob will enjoy their former privileges. Their community will be reestablished in my favor and I will punish all who try to oppress them.

The Lord says, “The people of Israel who survived death at the hands of the enemy will find favor in the wilderness as they journey to find rest for themselves.

Zedekiah will be carried off to Babylon and will remain there until I have fully dealt with him. I, the Lord, affirm it! Even if you continue to fight against the Babylonians, you cannot win.’”

They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. I tried over and over again to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction.

I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

In those days and at that time I will raise up for them a righteous descendant of David. “‘He will do what is just and right in the land.

“I, Lord, make the following promise: ‘I have made a covenant with the day and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people could break that covenant

Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the territory of Benjamin. He wanted to make sure he got his share of the property that was being divided up among his family there.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. The siege began in the tenth month of the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah.

But he left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing. He gave them fields and vineyards at that time.