Neither he nor any of his attendants showed any alarm when they heard all that had been read. Nor did they tear their clothes to show any grief or sorrow. ¹ 

To this day your people ¹  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ²  you and your ancestors.’

Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there. Ostriches ¹  will dwell in it too. ²  But no people will ever live there again. No one will dwell there for all time to come. ³ 

Do you people think ¹  that I am some local deity and not the transcendent God?” ²  the Lord asks. ³ 

“You should fear me!” says the Lord. “You should tremble in awe before me! ¹  I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ² 

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹ 

They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

But your ancestors ¹  did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate ²  and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

“Do not get married and do not have children here in this land.

I will scatter them before their enemies like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind. I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them ¹  when disaster strikes them.”

So, now the Lord says, ¹  ‘You have not listened to me. But ²  you have made me angry by the things that you have done. ³  Thus you have brought harm on yourselves.’

(Now Jeremiah had not yet been put in prison. ¹  So he was still free to come and go among the people as he pleased. ² 

Then Zedekiah told Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about the conversation we have had. ¹  If you do, you will die. ² 

This day ¹  I have told you what he said. ²  But you do not want to obey the Lord by doing what he sent me to tell you. ³ 

I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  I know how arrogant they are. But their pride is ill-founded. Their boastings will prove to be false. ² 

By the ninth day of the fourth month ¹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ²  had no food.

They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, ¹  through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’ ² 

You also have done all these things, says the Lord, and I have spoken to you over and over again. ¹  But you have not listened! You have refused to respond when I called you to repent! ² 

Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! ¹  I did not send them. I did not commission them. ²  I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, ³  and the delusions of their own mind.

They will be like a tree planted near a stream whose roots spread out toward the water. It has nothing to fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no need to be concerned in a year of drought. It does not stop bearing fruit.