Does a young woman forget to put on her jewels? Does a bride forget to put on her bridal attire? But my people have forgotten me for more days than can even be counted.

The Lord says, “Watch out! ¹  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ² 

“Indeed a time is coming,” ¹  says the Lord, ²  “when the city of Jerusalem ³  will be rebuilt as my special city. ⁴  It will be built from the Tower of Hananel westward to the Corner Gate. ⁵ 

Ten days later the Lord spoke to Jeremiah.

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

Their widows will become in my sight more numerous ¹  than the grains of sand on the seashores. At noontime I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men. ²  I will cause anguish ³  and terror to fall suddenly upon them. ⁴ 

Yet ¹  I, the Lord, say: ²  “A new time will certainly come. ³  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’

“I, the Lord, promise ¹  that a new time will certainly come ²  when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ³  a descendant of David. He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ⁴  and will do what is just and right in the land. ⁵ 

“So I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘A new time will certainly come. ²  People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.”

“Indeed, a time is coming,” ¹  says the Lord, ²  “when I will cause people and animals to sprout up in the lands of Israel and Judah. ³ 

“Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, ¹  “when I will make a new covenant ²  with the people of Israel and Judah. ³ 

“I, the Lord, affirm: ¹  ‘The time will certainly come when I will fulfill my gracious promise concerning the nations of Israel and Judah. ² 

So ¹  Jeremiah was put in prison in a cell in the dungeon in Jonathan’s house. ²  He ³  was kept there for a long time.

But the time is coming when I will send men against Moab who will empty it out. They will empty the towns of their people, then will lay those towns in ruins. ¹  I, the Lord, affirm it! ² 

“So the time will certainly come ¹  when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. ² 

Yes, but the time will certainly come,” ¹  says the Lord, ²  “when I will punish her idols. Throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.

I am as full of anger as you are, Lord, ¹  I am tired of trying to hold it in.” The Lord answered, ²  “Vent it, then, ³  on the children who play in the street and on the young men who are gathered together. Husbands and wives are to be included, ⁴  as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.

So, watch out!” ¹  says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room. ³ 

So I, the Lord, say: ¹  “The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter!

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.