Shout the battle cry from all around the city. She will throw up her hands in surrender. ¹  Her towers ²  will fall. Her walls will be torn down. Because I, the Lord, am wreaking revenge, ³  take out your vengeance on her! Do to her as she has done!

You are like a wild female donkey brought up in the wilderness. In her lust she sniffs the wind to get the scent of a male. ¹  No one can hold her back when she is in heat. None of the males need wear themselves out chasing after her. At mating time she is easy to find. ² 

And you, Zion, city doomed to destruction, ¹  you accomplish nothing ²  by wearing a beautiful dress, ³  decking yourself out in jewels of gold, and putting on eye shadow! ⁴  You are making yourself beautiful for nothing. Your lovers spurn you. They want to kill you. ⁵ 

I hear my dear people ¹  crying out ²  throughout the length and breadth of the land. ³  They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King ⁴  no longer there?’” The Lord answers, ⁵  “Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” ⁶ 

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 

‘The defenders of the city will go out and fight with the Babylonians. ¹  But they will only fill those houses and buildings with the dead bodies of the people that I will kill in my anger and my wrath. ²  That will happen because I have decided to turn my back on ³  this city on account of the wicked things they have done. ⁴ 

Tell King Jehoiakim of Judah, ‘The Lord says, “You burned the scroll. You asked ¹  Jeremiah, ‘How dare you write in this scroll that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and wipe out all the people and animals on it?’” ² 

“Go ¹  and tell Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, “I will carry out against this city what I promised. It will mean disaster and not good fortune for it. ²  When that disaster happens, you will be there to see it. ³ 

The mother who had seven children ¹  will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. ²  Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. ³  She will suffer shame and humiliation. ⁴  I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies,” ⁵  says the Lord.

Ebed Melech departed the palace and went to speak to the king. He said to him,

So they pulled Jeremiah up from the cistern with ropes. Jeremiah, however, still remained confined ¹  to the courtyard of the guardhouse.

“All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ¹  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ²  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ³ 

Their houses will be turned over to others as will their fields and their wives. For I will unleash my power ¹  against those who live in this land,” says the Lord.

From the time your ancestors departed the land of Egypt until now, ¹  I sent my servants the prophets to you again and again, ²  day after day. ³ 

“I will deliver you from the power of the wicked. I will free you from the clutches of violent people.”

He will be left unburied just like a dead donkey. His body will be dragged off and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.’” ¹ 

The boundary line will extend beyond that, straight west from there to the Hill of Gareb and then turn southward to Goah. ¹ 

I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘You people have deserted me! You keep turning your back on me.’ ²  So I have unleashed my power against you ³  and have begun to destroy you. ⁴  I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you!” ⁵ 

Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the territory of Benjamin. He wanted to make sure he got his share of the property that was being divided up among his family there. ¹ 

The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.