But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians ¹  and they will burn it down. You yourself will not escape from them.’” ² 

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

Then I said to the people of Judah, ¹  “Listen and pay attention! Do not be arrogant! For the Lord has spoken.

So I, the Lord, say this: ¹  ‘I will soon bring disaster on them which they will not be able to escape! When they cry out to me for help, I will not listen to them.

Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon whom you now fear. ¹  Do not be afraid of him because I will be with you to save you and to rescue you from his power. I, the Lord, affirm it! ² 

I, the Lord, tell ¹  you not to be afraid, you descendants of Jacob, my servant, for I am with you. Though I completely destroy all the nations where I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will indeed discipline you but only in due measure. I will not allow you to go entirely unpunished.” ² 

Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹ 

May those who persecute me be disgraced. Do not let me be disgraced. May they be dismayed. Do not let me be dismayed. Bring days of disaster on them. Bring on them the destruction they deserve.” ¹ 

So put on sackcloth! Mourn and wail, saying, ‘The fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us!’” ¹ 

“They cry, ¹  ‘Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over, ²  and still we have not been delivered.’

But I will completely uproot and destroy any of those nations that will not pay heed,’” ¹  says the Lord.

Cursed be the day I was born! May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me. ¹ 

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

But I have not pestered you to bring disaster. ¹  I have not desired the time of irreparable devastation. ²  You know that. You are fully aware of every word that I have spoken. ³ 

Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you will certainly kill me. ¹  If I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

Why will your soldiers ¹  be defeated? ²  They will not stand because I, the Lord, will thrust ³  them down.

Moreover, you will come away from Egypt with your hands covering your faces in sorrow and shame ¹  because the Lord will not allow your reliance on them to be successful and you will not gain any help from them. ² 

Even your clothes are stained with the lifeblood of the poor who had not done anything wrong; you did not catch them breaking into your homes. ¹  Yet, in spite of all these things you have done, ² 

I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹  They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ²  They do not know what their God requires of them. ³ 

I will indeed ¹  see to it that disaster, not prosperity, happens to them. ²  All the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will die in war or from starvation until not one of them is left.