At that time the city of Jerusalem<n id="1" /> will be called the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s name.<n id="2" /> They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts.<n id="3" />

&#8220;Stand in the gate of the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple and proclaim<n id="1" /> this message: &#8216;Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the <sc>Lordsc>.<n id="2" /> Hear what the <sc>Lordsc> has to say.

You also have done all these things, says the <sc>Lordsc>, and I have spoken to you over and over again.<n id="1" /> But you have not listened! You have refused to respond when I called you to repent!<n id="2" />

<p class="poetry">Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you.<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">Vent it on the peoples<n id="2" /> who do not worship you.<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">For they have destroyed the people of Jacob.<n id="4" />p> <p class="poetry">They have completely destroyed them<n id="5" />p> <p class="poetry">and left their homeland in utter ruin.p>

<p class="bodytext">The <sc>Lordsc> said to me, &#8220;Announce all the following words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: &#8216;Listen to the terms of my covenant with you<n id="1" /> and carry them out!

So, Jeremiah,<n id="1" /> 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.<n id="2" /> For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.&#8221;<n id="3" />p>

<p class="poetry">As a matter of fact,<n id="1" /> even your own brothersp> <p class="poetry">and the members of your own family have betrayed you too.p> <p class="poetry">Even they have plotted to do away with you.<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">So do not trust them even when they say kind things<n id="3" /> to you.p>

So I, the <sc>Lordsc>, say:<n id="1" /> &#8220;The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley<n id="2" /> the Valley of Slaughter!

But the next day Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks. When he did, Jeremiah said to him, &#8220;The <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s name for you is not &#8216;Pashhur&#8217; but &#8216;Terror is Everywhere.&#8217;<n id="1" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">The <sc>Lordsc> spoke to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah had made a covenant<n id="1" /> with all the people in Jerusalem<n id="2" /> to grant their slaves their freedom.

<p class="bodytext">So Jeremiah summoned Baruch son of Neriah. Then Jeremiah dictated to Baruch everything the <sc>Lordsc> had told him to say and Baruch wrote it all down in a scroll.<n id="1" />

All the people living in Jerusalem<n id="1" /> and all the people who came into Jerusalem from the towns of Judah came to observe a fast before the <sc>Lordsc>. The fast took place in the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah.<n id="2" />

At that time Baruch went into the temple of the <sc>Lordsc>. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary.<n id="1" /> That room was in the upper court<n id="2" /> near the entrance of the New Gate.<n id="3" /> There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said.<n id="4" />p>

The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He went and got it from the room of Elishama, the royal secretary. Then he himself<n id="1" /> read it to the king and all the officials who were standing around him.

As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns<n id="1" /> of the scroll, the king<n id="2" /> would cut them off with a penknife<n id="3" /> and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire.<n id="4" />

So I, the <sc>Lord,sc> the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, say:<n id="1" /> &#8220;I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them. I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I called out to them but they did not answer.&#8221;&#8217;&#8221;p>

All the officials sent Jehudi, who was the son of Nethaniah and the grandson of Cushi, to Baruch. They ordered him to tell Baruch, &#8220;Come here and bring with you<n id="1" /> the scroll you read in the hearing of the people.&#8221;<n id="2" /> So Baruch son of Neriah went to them, carrying the scroll in his hand.<n id="3" />

But<n id="1" /> listen to what the <sc>Lordsc> has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The <sc>Lordsc> says, &#8216;I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, &#8220;As surely as the Lord <sc>Godsc> lives&#8230;.&#8221;<n id="2" />