I looked at the mountains and saw that they were shaking. All the hills were swaying back and forth!

I set a trap for you, Babylon; you were caught before you knew it. You fought against me. So you were found and captured. ¹ 

(8:23) ¹  I wish that my head were a well full of water ²  and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people ³  who have been killed.

There were ninety-six pomegranate-shaped ornaments on the sides; in all there were one hundred pomegranate-shaped ornaments over the latticework that went around it.

When all the people that Ishmael had taken captive saw ¹  Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, they were glad.

Ishmael also killed all the Judeans ¹  who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah and the Babylonian ²  soldiers who happened to be there. ³ 

He did this while the army of the king of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem and the cities of Lachish and Azekah. He was attacking these cities because they were the only fortified cities of Judah which were still holding out. ¹ 

But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies ¹  in a cistern.

I will restore Judah and Israel ¹  and will rebuild them as they were in days of old. ² 

Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the first fruits of a harvest to him. ¹  All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’”

For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces ¹  fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” ² 

He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ¹  the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

The Lord gave me knowledge, that I might have understanding. ¹  Then he showed me what the people were doing. ² 

So Jeremiah summoned Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him and all the people of every class. ¹ 

From the city he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers, seven of the king’s advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ¹  for military service, and sixty citizens who were discovered in the middle of the city.

Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him heard about all the atrocities ¹  that Ishmael son of Nethaniah had committed.

Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods, as well as all their wives, answered Jeremiah. There was a great crowd of them representing all the people who lived in northern and southern Egypt. ¹  They answered,

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.

In the past I saw to it that they were uprooted and torn down, that they were destroyed and demolished. But now I will see to it that they are built up and firmly planted. ¹  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ² 

I looked and saw that there were no more people, ¹  and that all the birds in the sky had flown away.