Then I said, “Lord, you give me strength and protect me. You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. Nations from all over the earth will come to you and say, ‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods – worthless idols that could not help them at all.

But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them save you when you are in trouble. The sad fact is that you have as many gods as you have towns, Judah.

I answered, “Who would listen if I spoke to them and warned them? Their ears are so closed that they cannot hear! Indeed, what the Lord says is offensive to them. They do not like it at all.

You will probably ask yourself, ‘Why have these things happened to me? Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ It is because you have sinned so much.

I will make many stumble. They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. They will say, ‘Get up! Let’s go back to our own people. Let’s go back to our homelands because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’

Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed. Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding Rabbah. Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning. Run about covered with gashes. For your god Milcom will go into exile along with his priests and officials.

Their camels will be taken as plunder. Their vast herds will be taken as spoil. I will scatter to the four winds those desert peoples who cut their hair short at the temples. I will bring disaster against them from every direction,” says the Lord.

Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses.

This is what the Lord who rules over all says, “Babylon’s thick wall will be completely demolished. Her high gates will be set on fire. The peoples strive for what does not satisfy. The nations grow weary trying to get what will be destroyed.”

They will surround Jerusalem like men guarding a field because they have rebelled against me,” says the Lord.

“‘Do not go to a house where people are feasting and sit down to eat and drink with them either.

You should have reprimanded Jeremiah from Anathoth who is pretending to be a prophet among you!

Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I am no longer allowed to go into the Lord’s temple.

On the day after Gedaliah had been murdered, before anyone even knew about it,

“You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’

For our leaders are stupid. They have not sought the Lord’s advice. So they do not act wisely, and the people they are responsible for have all been scattered.

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!

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. They will winnow her and strip her land bare. This will happen when they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her.

‘We are ashamed because we have been insulted. Our faces show our disgrace. For foreigners have invaded the holy rooms in the Lord’s temple.’

The Lord told Jeremiah, “Tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite