I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords until I have destroyed them.’”

The Lord is the one who by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom established the world. And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

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

I, the Lord, say: ‘You people have deserted me! You keep turning your back on me.’ So I have unleashed my power against you and have begun to destroy you. I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you!”

I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds. I examine people’s hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.

But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it.

Does the snow ever completely vanish from the rocky slopes of Lebanon? Do the cool waters from those distant mountains ever cease to flow?

Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Announce there what I tell you.

I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

But the next day Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks. When he did, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord’s name for you is not ‘Pashhur’ but ‘Terror is Everywhere.’

I will send men against it to destroy it with their axes and hatchets. They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns and throw them into the fire.

“‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?”

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

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, now the Lord says, ‘You have not listened to me. But you have made me angry by the things that you have done. Thus you have brought harm on yourselves.’

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation too. I will repay them for all they have done!’”

If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ‘You most certainly must drink it!

Listen to the cries of anguish of the leaders. Listen to the wails of the shepherds of the flocks. They are wailing because the Lord is about to destroy their lands.

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.

For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.