To The Word – Day 184

₁While I was still in prison in the courtyard, the LORD's message came to me again. ₂The LORD, who made the earth, who formed it and set it in place, spoke to me. He whose name is the LORD said, ₃“Call to me, and I will answer you; I will tell you wonderful and marvellous things that you know nothing about. ₄I, the LORD, the God of Israel, say that the houses of Jerusalem and the royal palace of Judah will be torn down as a result of the siege and the attack. ₅Some will fight against the Babylonians, who will fill the houses with the corpses of those whom I am going to strike down in my anger and fury. I have turned away from this city because of the evil things that its people have done. ₆But I will heal this city and its people and restore them to health. I will show them abundant peace and security. ₇I will make Judah and Israel prosperous, and I will rebuild them as they were before. ₈I will purify them from the sins that they have committed against me, and I will forgive their sins and their rebellion. ₉Jerusalem will be a source of joy, honour, and pride to me; and every nation in the world will fear and tremble when they hear about the good things that I do for the people of Jerusalem and about the prosperity that I bring to the city.”

₁₀The LORD said, “People are saying that this place is like a desert, that it has no people or animals living in it. And they are right; the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem are empty; no people or animals live there. But in these places you will hear again ₁₁the shouts of gladness and joy and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. You will hear people sing as they bring thank-offerings to my Temple; they will say,

₁₂The LORD Almighty said, “In this land that is like a desert and where no people or animals live, there will once again be pastures where shepherds can take their sheep. ₁₃In the towns of the hill country, in the foothills, and in southern Judah, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages round Jerusalem, and in the towns of Judah, shepherds will once again count their sheep. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₁₄The LORD said, “The time is coming when I will fulfil the promise that I made to the people of Israel and Judah. ₁₅At that time I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will do what is right and just throughout the land. ₁₆The people of Judah and of Jerusalem will be rescued and will live in safety. The city will be called ‘The LORD Our Salvation’. ₁₇I, the LORD, promise that there will always be a descendant of David to be king of Israel ₁₈and that there will always be priests from the tribe of Levi to serve me and to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, and sacrifices.”

₁₉The LORD said to me, ₂₀“I have made a covenant with the day and with the night, so that they always come at their proper times; and that covenant can never be broken. ₂₁In the same way I have made a covenant with my servant David that he would always have a descendant to be king, and I have made a covenant with the priests from the tribe of Levi that they would always serve me; and those covenants can never be broken. ₂₂I will increase the number of descendants of my servant David and the number of priests from the tribe of Levi, so that it will be as impossible to count them as it is to count the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.”

₂₃The LORD said to me, ₂₄“Have you noticed how people are saying that I have rejected Israel and Judah, the two families that I chose? And so they look with contempt on my people and no longer consider them a nation. ₂₅But I, the LORD, have a covenant with day and night, and I have made the laws that control earth and sky. ₂₆And just as surely as I have done this, so I will maintain my covenant with Jacob's descendants and with my servant David. I will choose one of David's descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will be merciful to my people and make them prosperous again.”

₁The LORD spoke to me when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army, supported by troops from all the nations and races that were subject to him, were attacking Jerusalem and its nearby towns. ₂The LORD, the God of Israel, told me to go and say to King Zedekiah of Judah, “I, the LORD, will hand this city over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it down. ₃You will not escape; you will be captured and handed over to him. You will see him face to face and talk to him in person; then you will go to Babylonia. ₄Zedekiah, listen to what I say about you. You will not be killed in battle. ₅You will die in peace, and as people burnt incense when they buried your ancestors, who were kings before you, in the same way they will burn incense for you. They will mourn over you and say, ‘Our king is dead!’ I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₆Then I gave this message to King Zedekiah in Jerusalem ₇while the army of the king of Babylonia was attacking the city. The army was also attacking Lachish and Azekah, the only other fortified cities left in Judah.

₈King Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem had made an agreement to set free ₉their Hebrew slaves, both male and female, so that no one would have a fellow-Israelite as a slave. ₁₀All the people and their leaders agreed to free their slaves and never to enslave them again. They did set them free, ₁₁but later they changed their minds, took them back, and forced them to become slaves again.

₁₂Then the LORD, ₁₃the God of Israel, told me to say to the people: “I made a covenant with your ancestors when I rescued them from Egypt and set them free from slavery. I told them that ₁₄every seven years they were to set free any Hebrew slave who had served them for six years. But your ancestors would not pay any attention to me or listen to what I said. ₁₅Just a few days ago you changed your minds and did what pleased me. All of you agreed to set your fellow-Israelites free, and you made a covenant in my presence, in the Temple where I am worshipped. ₁₆But then you changed your minds again and dishonoured me. All of you took back the slaves whom you had set free as they desired, and you forced them into slavery again. ₁₇So now, I, the LORD, say that you have disobeyed me: you have not given your fellow-Israelites their freedom. Very well, then, I will give you freedom: the freedom to die by war, disease, and starvation. I will make every nation in the world horrified at what I do to you. _18-19The officials of Judah and of Jerusalem, together with the palace officials, the priests, and all the leaders, made a covenant with me by walking between the two halves of a bull that they had cut in two. But they broke the covenant and did not keep its terms. So I will do to these people what they did to the bull. ₂₀I will hand them over to their enemies, who want to kill them, and their corpses will be eaten by birds and wild animals. ₂₁I will also hand over King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials to those who want to kill them. I will hand them over to the Babylonian army, which has stopped its attack against you. ₂₂I will give the order, and they will return to this city. They will attack it, capture it, and burn it down. I will make the towns of Judah like a desert where no one lives. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

₁When Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, ₂“Go to the members of the Rechabite clan and talk to them. Then bring them into one of the rooms in the Temple and offer them some wine.” ₃So I took the entire Rechabite clan — Jaazaniah (the son of another Jeremiah, who was Habazziniah's son) and all his brothers and sons — ₄and brought them to the Temple. I took them into the room of the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah. This room was above the room of Maaseiah son of Shallum, an important official in the Temple, and near the rooms of the other officials. ₅Then I placed cups and bowls full of wine before the Rechabites, and I said to them, “Have some wine.”

₆But they answered, “We do not drink wine. Our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab told us that neither we nor our descendants were ever to drink any wine. ₇He also told us not to build houses or farm the land, and not to plant vineyards or buy them. He commanded us always to live in tents, so that we might remain in this land where we live like strangers. ₈We have obeyed all the instructions that Jonadab gave us. We ourselves never drink wine, and neither do our wives, our sons, or our daughters. _9-10We do not build houses for homes — we live in tents — and we own no vineyards, fields, or corn. We have fully obeyed everything that our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. ₁₁But when King Nebuchadnezzar invaded the country, we decided to come to Jerusalem to get away from the Babylonian and Syrian armies. That is why we are living in Jerusalem.”

_12-13Then the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, told me to go and say to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, “I, the LORD, ask you why you refuse to listen to me and to obey my instructions. ₁₄Jonadab's descendants have obeyed his command not to drink wine, and to this very day none of them drink any. But I have kept on speaking to you, and you have not obeyed me. ₁₅I have continued to send you all my servants the prophets, and they have told you to give up your evil ways and to do what is right. They warned you not to worship and serve other gods, so that you could go on living in the land that I gave you and your ancestors. But you would not listen to me or pay attention to me. ₁₆Jonadab's descendants have obeyed the command that their ancestor gave them, but you people have not obeyed me. ₁₇So now, I, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, will bring on you people of Judah and of Jerusalem all the destruction that I promised. I will do this because you would not listen when I spoke to you, and you would not answer when I called you.”

₁₈Then I told the Rechabite clan that the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, “You have obeyed the command that your ancestor Jonadab gave you; you have followed all his instructions, and you have done everything he commanded you. ₁₉So I, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, promise that Jonadab son of Rechab will always have a male descendant to serve me.”

₁In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, ₂“Get a scroll and write on it everything that I have told you about Israel and Judah and all the nations. Write everything that I have told you from the time I first spoke to you, when Josiah was king, up to the present. ₃Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the destruction that I intend to bring on them, they will turn from their evil ways. Then I will forgive their wickedness and their sins.”

₄So I called Baruch son of Neriah and dictated to him everything that the LORD had said to me. And Baruch wrote it all down on a scroll. ₅Then I gave Baruch the following instructions: “I am no longer allowed to go into the Temple. ₆But I want you to go there the next time the people are fasting. You are to read the scroll aloud, so that they will hear everything that the LORD has said to me and that I have dictated to you. Do this where everyone can hear you, including the people of Judah who have come in from their towns. ₇Perhaps they will pray to the LORD and turn from their evil ways, because the LORD has threatened this people with his terrible anger and fury.” ₈So Baruch read the LORD's words in the Temple exactly as I had told him to do.

₉In the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, the people fasted to gain the LORD's favour. The fast was kept by all who lived in Jerusalem and by all who came there from the towns of Judah. ₁₀Then, while all the people were listening, Baruch read from the scroll everything that I had said. He did this in the Temple, from the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan, the court secretary. His room was in the upper court near the entrance of the New Gate of the Temple.

₁₁Micaiah, the son of Gemariah and grandson of Shaphan, heard Baruch read from the scroll what the LORD had said. ₁₂Then he went to the royal palace, to the room of the court secretary, where all the officials were in session. Elishama, the court secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were there. ₁₃Micaiah told them everything that he had heard Baruch read to the people. ₁₄Then the officials sent Jehudi (the son of Nethaniah, grandson of Shelemiah, and great-grandson of Cushi) to tell Baruch to bring the scroll that he had read to the people. Baruch brought them the scroll. ₁₅“Sit down,” they said, “and read the scroll to us.” So Baruch did. ₁₆After he had read it, they turned to one another in alarm, and said to Baruch, “We must report this to the king.” ₁₇Then they asked him, “Tell us, now, how did you come to write all this? Did Jeremiah dictate it to you?”

₁₈Baruch answered, “Jeremiah dictated every word of it to me, and I wrote it down in ink on this scroll.”

₁₉Then they said to him, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. Don't let anyone know where you are.”

₂₀The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the court secretary, and went to the king's court, where they reported everything to the king. ₂₁Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He took it from the room of Elishama and read it to the king and all the officials who were standing round him. ₂₂It was winter and the king was sitting in his winter palace in front of the fire. ₂₃As soon as Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king cut them off with a small knife and threw them into the fire. He kept doing this until the entire scroll was burnt up. ₂₄But neither the king nor any of his officials who heard all this was afraid or showed any sign of sorrow. ₂₅Although Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he paid no attention to them. ₂₆Then he ordered Prince Jerahmeel, together with Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to arrest me and my secretary Baruch. But the LORD had hidden us.

₂₇After King Jehoiakim had burnt the scroll that I had dictated to Baruch, the LORD told me ₂₈to take another scroll and write on it everything that had been on the first one. ₂₉The LORD told me to say to the king, “You have burnt the scroll, and you have asked Jeremiah why he wrote that the king of Babylonia would come and destroy this land and kill its people and its animals. ₃₀So now, I, the LORD, say to you, King Jehoiakim, that no descendant of yours will ever rule over David's kingdom. Your corpse will be thrown out where it will be exposed to the sun during the day and to the frost at night. ₃₁I will punish you, your descendants, and your officials because of the sins all of you commit. Neither you nor the people of Jerusalem and of Judah have paid any attention to my warnings, and so I will bring on all of you the disaster that I have threatened.”

₃₂Then I took another scroll and gave it to my secretary Baruch, and he wrote down everything that I dictated. He wrote everything that had been on the first scroll and similar messages that I dictated to him.

₁King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia made Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah in the place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. ₂But neither Zedekiah nor his officials nor the people obeyed the message which the LORD had given me.

₃King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to ask me to pray to the LORD our God on behalf of our nation. ₄I had not yet been put in prison and was still moving about freely among the people. ₅The Babylonian army had been besieging Jerusalem, but when they heard that the Egyptian army had crossed the Egyptian border, they retreated.

₆Then the LORD, the God of Israel, told me ₇to say to Zedekiah, “The Egyptian army is on its way to help you, but it will return home. ₈Then the Babylonians will come back, attack the city, capture it, and burn it down. ₉I, the LORD, warn you not to deceive yourselves into thinking that the Babylonians will not come back, because they will. ₁₀Even if you defeat the whole Babylonian army, so that only wounded men are left, lying in their tents, those men would still get up and burn this city to the ground.”

₁₁The Babylonian army retreated from Jerusalem because the Egyptian army was approaching. ₁₂So I started to leave Jerusalem and go to the territory of Benjamin to take possession of my share of the family property. ₁₃But when I reached the Benjamin Gate, the officer in charge of the soldiers on duty there, a man by the name of Irijah, the son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, stopped me and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”

₁₄I answered, “That's not so! I'm not deserting.” But Irijah would not listen to me. Instead, he arrested me and took me to the officials. ₁₅They were furious with me and ordered me to be beaten and locked up in the house of Jonathan, the court secretary, whose house had been made into a prison. ₁₆I was put in an underground cell and kept there a long time.

₁₇Later on King Zedekiah sent for me, and there in the palace he asked me privately, “Is there any message from the LORD?”

“There is,” I answered, and added, “You will be handed over to the king of Babylonia.” ₁₈Then I asked, “What crime have I committed against you or your officials or this people, to make you put me in prison? ₁₉What happened to your prophets who told you that the king of Babylonia would not attack you or the country? ₂₀And now, Your Majesty, I beg you to listen to me and do what I ask. Please do not send me back to the prison in Jonathan's house. If you do, I will surely die there.”

₂₁So King Zedekiah ordered me to be locked up in the palace courtyard. I stayed there, and each day I was given a loaf of bread from the bakeries until all the bread in the city was gone.

₁Don't be envious of evil people, and don't try to make friends with them. ₂Causing trouble is all they ever think about; every time they open their mouth someone is going to be hurt.

₃Homes are built on the foundation of wisdom and understanding. ₄Where there is knowledge, the rooms are furnished with valuable, beautiful things.

₅Being wise is better than being strong; yes, knowledge is more important than strength. ₆After all, you must make careful plans before you fight a battle, and the more good advice you get, the more likely you are to win.

₇Wise sayings are too deep for stupid people to understand. They have nothing to say when important matters are being discussed.

₈If you are always planning evil, you will earn a reputation as a troublemaker. ₉Any scheme a fool thinks up is sinful. People hate a person who has nothing but scorn for others.

₁₀If you are weak in a crisis, you are weak indeed.

₁₁Don't hesitate to rescue someone who is about to be executed unjustly. ₁₂You may say that it is none of your business, but God knows and judges your motives. He keeps watch on you; he knows. And he will reward you according to what you do.

₁₃Son, eat honey; it is good. And just as honey from the comb is sweet on your tongue, ₁₄you may be sure that wisdom is good for the soul. Get wisdom and you have a bright future.

₁₅Don't be like the wicked who scheme to rob honest people or to take away their homes. ₁₆No matter how often honest people fall, they always get up again; but disaster destroys the wicked.

₁₇Don't be glad when your enemies meet disaster, and don't rejoice when they stumble. ₁₈The LORD will know if you are gloating, and he will not like it; and then he might not punish them.

₁₉Don't let evil people worry you; don't be envious of them. ₂₀A wicked person has no future — nothing to look forward to.

₂₁Have reverence for the LORD, my child, and honour the king. Have nothing to do with people who rebel against them; ₂₂such people could be ruined in a moment. Do you realize the disaster that God or the king can cause?

₂₃The wise have also said these things:

It is wrong for judges to be prejudiced. ₂₄If they pronounce a guilty person innocent, they will be cursed and hated by everyone. ₂₅Judges who punish the guilty, however, will be prosperous and enjoy a good reputation.

₂₆An honest answer is a sign of true friendship.

₂₇Don't build your house and establish a home until your fields are ready, and you are sure that you can earn a living.

₂₈Don't give evidence against someone else without good reason, or say misleading things about him. ₂₉Don't say, “I'll do to him just what he did to me! I'll get even with him!”

₃₀I walked through the fields and vineyards of a lazy, stupid person. ₃₁They were full of thorn bushes and overgrown with weeds. The stone wall round them had fallen down. ₃₂I looked at this, thought about it, and learned a lesson from it: ₃₃have a nap and sleep if you want to. Fold your hands and rest awhile, ₃₄but while you are asleep, poverty will attack you like an armed robber.