You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!” ¹ 

Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to Perath and get ¹  the shorts I ordered you to bury there.”

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to ¹  a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

“Go down at once ¹  to the potter’s house. I will speak to you further there.” ² 

There at home they will say, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is just a big noise! ¹  He has let the most opportune moment pass by.’ ² 

the wars you fear will catch up with you there in the land of Egypt. The starvation you are worried about will follow you there to ¹  Egypt. You will die there. ² 

The Lord told me, ¹  “Go down ²  to the palace of the king of Judah. Give him a message from me there. ³ 

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 

But how can it rest ¹  when I, the Lord, have ²  given it orders? I have ordered it to attack the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast. ³ 

I will establish my sovereignty over Elam. ¹  I will destroy their king and their leaders,” ²  says the Lord. ³ 

You, Pashhur, and all your household ¹  will go into exile in Babylon. You will die there and you will be buried there. The same thing will happen to all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’” ² 

I will make myself available to you,’ ¹  says the Lord. ²  ‘Then I will reverse your plight ³  and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ⁴  ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” ¹ 

There is still medicinal ointment ¹  available in Gilead! There is still a physician there! ²  Why then have my dear people ³  not been restored to health? ⁴ 

“Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing ¹  and go at once ²  to Perath. ³  Bury the shorts there ⁴  in a crack in the rocks.”

So I went to Perath and dug up ¹  the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found ²  that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. ¹  Announce there what I tell you. ² 

Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord’s temple and stood ¹  in its courtyard and called out to all the people.

For he will die in the country where they took him as a captive. He will never see this land again.” ¹ 

Then I myself will regather those of my people ¹  who are still alive from all the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their homeland. ²  They will greatly increase in number.