To The Word – Day 183

₁That same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah was king, Hananiah son of Azzur, a prophet from the town of Gibeon, spoke to me in the Temple. In the presence of the priests and of the people he told me ₂that the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, had said: “I have broken the power of the king of Babylonia. ₃Within two years I will bring back to this place all the temple treasures that King Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylonia. ₄I will also bring back the king of Judah, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, along with all the people of Judah who went into exile in Babylonia. Yes, I will break the power of the king of Babylonia. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₅Then in the presence of the priests and of all the people who were standing in the Temple, I said to Hananiah: ₆“Wonderful! I hope the LORD will do this! I certainly hope he will make your prophecy come true and will bring back from Babylonia all the temple treasures and all the people who were taken away as prisoners. ₇But listen to what I say to you and to the people. ₈The prophets who spoke long ago, before my time and yours, predicted that war, starvation, and disease would come to many nations and powerful kingdoms. ₉But a prophet who predicts peace can only be recognized as a prophet whom the LORD has truly sent when that prophet's predictions come true.”

₁₀Then Hananiah took the yoke off my neck, broke it in pieces, ₁₁and said in the presence of all the people: “The LORD has said that this is how he will break the yoke that King Nebuchadnezzar has put on the neck of all the nations; and he will do this within two years.” Then I left.

₁₂Some time after this the LORD told me ₁₃to go and say to Hananiah: “The LORD has said that you may be able to break a wooden yoke, but he will replace it with an iron yoke. ₁₄The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and that they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. The LORD has said that he will make even the wild animals serve Nebuchadnezzar.”

₁₅Then I told Hananiah this, and added, “Listen, Hananiah! The LORD did not send you, and you are making these people believe a lie. ₁₆And so the LORD himself says that he is going to get rid of you. Before this year is over you will die because you have told the people to rebel against the LORD.”

₁₇And Hananiah died in the seventh month of that same year.

₁I wrote a letter to the priests, the prophets, the leaders of the people, and to all the others whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia. ₂I wrote it after King Jehoiachin, his mother, the palace officials, the leaders of Judah and of Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the skilled workmen had been taken into exile. ₃I gave the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah was sending to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. It said:

_24-25The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, gave me a message for Shemaiah of Nehelam, who had sent a letter in his own name to all the people of Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah and to all the other priests. In this letter, Shemaiah wrote to Zephaniah:

₂₉Zephaniah read the letter to me, ₃₀and then the LORD told me _31-32to send to all the prisoners in Babylon this message about Shemaiah: “I, the LORD, will punish Shemaiah and all his descendants. I did not send him, but he spoke to you as if he were a prophet, and he made you believe lies. He will have no descendants among you. He will not live to see the good things that I am going to do for my people, because he told them to rebel against me. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₁The LORD, the God of Israel, ₂said to me: “Write down in a book everything that I have told you, ₃because the time is coming when I will restore my people, Israel and Judah. I will bring them back to the land that I gave their ancestors, and they will take possession of it again. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₄The LORD says to the people of Israel and Judah:

₈The LORD Almighty says: “When that day comes, I will break the yoke that is round their necks and remove their chains, and they will no longer be the slaves of foreigners. ₉Instead, they will serve me, the LORD their God, and a descendant of David, whom I will enthrone as king.

₁₂The LORD says to his people,

₁₈The LORD says,

_23-24The LORD's anger is a storm, a furious wind that will rage over the heads of the wicked. It will not end until he has done all that he intends to do. In days to come his people will understand this clearly.

₁The LORD says, “The time is coming when I will be the God of all the tribes of Israel, and they will be my people. ₂In the desert I showed mercy to those people who had escaped death. When the people of Israel longed for rest, ₃I appeared to them from far away. People of Israel, I have always loved you, so I continue to show you my constant love. ₄Once again I will rebuild you. Once again you will take up your tambourines and dance joyfully. ₅Once again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria, and those who plant them will eat what the vineyards produce. ₆Yes, the time is coming when watchmen will call out on the hills of Ephraim, ‘Let's go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.’ ”

₇The LORD says,

₁₀The LORD says,

₁₅The LORD says,

₂₃The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, “When I restore the people to their land, they will once again say in the land of Judah and in its towns,

₂₇“I, the LORD, say that the time is coming when I will fill the land of Israel and Judah with people and animals. ₂₈And just as I took care to uproot, to pull down, to overthrow, to destroy, and to demolish them, so I will take care to plant them and to build them up. ₂₉When that time comes, people will no longer say,

₃₁The LORD says, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. ₃₂It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them, they did not keep that covenant. ₃₃The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ₃₄None of them will have to teach his fellow-citizen to know the LORD, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

The LORD has spoken.

₃₈“The time is coming,” says the LORD, “when all Jerusalem will be rebuilt as my city, from Hananel Tower west to the Corner Gate. ₃₉And the boundary line will continue from there on the west to the hill of Gareb and then round to Goah. ₄₀The entire valley, where the dead are buried and refuse is thrown, and all the fields above the brook of Kidron as far as the Horse Gate to the east, will be sacred to me. The city will never again be torn down or destroyed.”

₁The LORD spoke to me in the tenth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, which was also the eighteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. ₂At that time the army of the king of Babylonia was attacking Jerusalem, and I was locked up in the courtyard of the royal palace. ₃King Zedekiah had imprisoned me there and had accused me of announcing that the LORD had said, “I am going to let the king of Babylonia capture this city, ₄and King Zedekiah will not escape. He will be handed over to the king of Babylonia; he will see him face to face and will speak to him in person. ₅Zedekiah will be taken to Babylonia, and he will remain there until I deal with him. Even if he fights the Babylonians, he will not be successful. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₆The LORD told me ₇that Hanamel, my uncle Shallum's son, would come to me with the request to buy his field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, because I was his nearest relative and had the right to buy it for myself. ₈Then, just as the LORD had said, Hanamel came to me there in the courtyard and asked me to buy the field. So I knew that the LORD had really spoken to me. ₉I bought the field from Hanamel and weighed out the money to him; the price came to seventeen pieces of silver. ₁₀I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the money on scales. ₁₁Then I took both copies of the deed of purchase — the sealed copy containing the contract and its conditions, and the open copy — ₁₂and gave them to Baruch, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence of Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase and of the people who were sitting in the courtyard. ₁₃Before them all I said to Baruch, ₁₄“The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has ordered you to take these deeds, both the sealed deed of purchase and the open copy, and to place them in a clay jar, so that they may be preserved for years to come. ₁₅The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

₁₆After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, I prayed, ₁₇“Sovereign LORD, you made the earth and the sky by your great power and might; nothing is too difficult for you. ₁₈You have shown constant love to thousands, but you also punish people for the sins of their parents. You are a great and powerful God; you are the LORD Almighty. ₁₉You make wise plans and do mighty things; you see everything that people do, and you reward them according to their actions. ₂₀Long ago, you performed miracles and wonders in Egypt, and you have continued to perform them to this day, both in Israel and among all the other nations, so that you are now known everywhere. ₂₁By means of miracles and wonders that terrified our enemies, you used your power and might to bring your people Israel out of Egypt. ₂₂You gave them this rich and fertile land, as you had promised their ancestors. ₂₃But when they came into this land and took possession of it, they did not obey your commands or live according to your teaching; they did nothing that you had ordered them to do. And so you brought all this destruction on them.

₂₄“The Babylonians have built siege mounds round the city to capture it, and they are attacking. War, starvation, and disease will make the city fall into their hands. You can see that all you have said has come true. ₂₅Yet, Sovereign LORD, you are the one who ordered me to buy the field in the presence of witnesses, even though the city is about to be captured by the Babylonians.”

₂₆Then the LORD said to me, ₂₇“I am the LORD, the God of the whole human race. Nothing is too difficult for me. ₂₈I am going to give this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army; they will capture it ₂₉and set it on fire. They will burn it down, together with the houses where people have made me angry by burning incense to Baal on the rooftops and by pouring out wine offerings to other gods. ₃₀From the very beginning of their history the people of Israel and the people of Judah have displeased me and made me angry by what they have done. ₃₁The people of this city have made me angry and furious from the day it was built. I have decided to destroy it ₃₂because of all the evil that has been done by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, together with their kings and leaders, their priests and prophets. ₃₃They turned their backs on me; and though I kept on teaching them, they would not listen and learn. ₃₄They even placed their disgusting idols in the Temple built for my worship, and they have defiled it. ₃₅They have built altars to Baal in the Valley of Hinnom, to sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. I did not command them to do this, and it did not even enter my mind that they would do such a thing and make the people of Judah sin.”

₃₆The LORD, the God of Israel, said to me, “Jeremiah, the people are saying that war, starvation, and disease will make this city fall into the hands of the king of Babylonia. Now listen to what else I have to say. ₃₇I am going to gather the people from all the countries where I have scattered them in my anger and fury, and I am going to bring them back to this place and let them live here in safety. ₃₈Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. ₃₉I will give them a single purpose in life: to honour me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants. ₄₀I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from me. ₄₁I will take pleasure in doing good things for them, and I will establish them permanently in this land.

₄₂“Just as I have brought this disaster on these people, so I am going to give them all the good things that I have promised. ₄₃The people are saying that this land will be like a desert where neither people nor animals live, and that it will be given over to the Babylonians. But fields will once again be bought in this land. ₄₄People will buy them, and the deeds will be signed, sealed, and witnessed. This will take place in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages round Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah, and in the towns in the hill country, in the foothills, and in southern Judah. I will restore the people to their land. I, the LORD, have spoken.”