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.

I will punish any prophet, priest, or other person who says “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” I will punish both that person and his whole family.’”

Do not listen to them, because their prophecies are lies. Listening to them will only cause you to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile.

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.

“The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says to all those he sent into exile to Babylon from Jerusalem,

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.

“For I, the Lord, say: ‘I will surely bring on these people all the good fortune that I am hereby promising them. I will be just as sure to do that as I have been in bringing all this great disaster on them.

I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt with war, starvation, and disease just as I punished Jerusalem.

Come down from your place of honor; sit on the dry ground, you who live in Dibon. For the one who will destroy Moab will attack you; he will destroy your fortifications.

Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places, you people who live in Dedan. For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau. I have decided it is time for me to punish them.

So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: ‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria.

“Listen! I am opposed to you, you proud city,” says the Lord God who rules over all. “Indeed, your day of reckoning has come, the time when I will punish you.

Yes, but the time will certainly come,” says the Lord, “when I will punish her idols. Throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.

“Run for safety, people of Benjamin! Get out of Jerusalem! Sound the trumpet in Tekoa! Light the signal fires at Beth Hakkerem! For disaster lurks out of the north; it will bring great destruction.

You also have done all these things, says the Lord, and I have spoken to you over and over again. But you have not listened! You have refused to respond when I called you to repent!

However, I will leave some of these wicked people alive and banish them to other places. But wherever these people who survive may go, they will wish they had died rather than lived,” says the Lord who rules over all.

The Lord says, “These people are like soldiers who have readied their bows. Their tongues are always ready to shoot out lies. They have become powerful in the land, but they have not done so by honest means. Indeed, they do one evil thing after another and do not pay attention to me.

So, Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf. Do not plead with me to save them. For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.”

A destructive army will come marching over the hilltops in the desert. For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon against everyone from one end of the land to the other. No one will be safe.

Then the Lord spoke about these people. “They truly love to go astray. They cannot keep from running away from me. So I am not pleased with them. I will now call to mind the wrongs they have done and punish them for their sins.”