If I go out into the countryside, I see those who have been killed in battle. If I go into the city, I see those who are sick because of starvation. ¹  For both prophet and priest go about their own business in the land without having any real understanding.’” ² 

For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ¹  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ²  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.

I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder ¹  and carry it off to Babylon.

The Babylonian soldiers ¹  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ² 

As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ¹  of the scroll, the king ²  would cut them off with a penknife ³  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ⁴ 

“The Lord says, ‘Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. ¹  Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians ²  will live. They will escape with their lives.’” ³ 

“Your royal Majesty, those men have been very wicked in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern and he is sure to die of starvation there because there is no food left in the city. ¹ 

“Go ¹  and tell Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, “I will carry out against this city what I promised. It will mean disaster and not good fortune for it. ²  When that disaster happens, you will be there to see it. ³ 

Then tell them, ¹  ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²  says, “I will bring ³  my servant ⁴  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will set his throne over these stones which I ⁵  have buried. He will pitch his royal tent ⁶  over them.

He will set fire ¹  to the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn their gods or carry them off as captives. ²  He will pick Egypt clean like a shepherd picks the lice from his clothing. ³  He will leave there unharmed. ⁴ 

Are you looking for great things for yourself? Do not look for such things. For I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that I am about to bring disaster on all humanity. ²  But I will allow you to escape with your life ³  wherever you go.”’”

like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds after the rain. ¹  This was the appearance of the surrounding brilliant light; it looked like the glory of the Lord. When I saw ²  it, I threw myself face down, and I heard a voice speaking.

A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. ¹  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, ²  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them.

“Therefore say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Although I have removed them far away among the nations and have dispersed them among the countries, I have been a little ¹  sanctuary for them among the lands where they have gone.’

For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

So now, bear your disgrace, because you have given your sisters reason to justify their behavior. ¹  Because the sins you have committed were more abominable than those of your sisters; they have become more righteous than you. So now, be ashamed and bear the disgrace of making your sisters appear righteous.

“Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Because you have brought up ¹  your own guilt by uncovering your transgressions and revealing your sins through all your actions, for this reason you will be taken by force. ² 

you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; ¹  the end of your years has come. ²  Therefore I will make ³  you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands.

By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade, you desecrated your sanctuaries. So I drew fire out from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth before the eyes of all who saw you.

Foreigners from the most terrifying nations have cut it down and left it to lie there on the mountains. In all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in the ravines of the land. All the peoples of the land ¹  have departed ²  from its shade and left it.