Your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt; ¹  you will reestablish the ancient foundations. You will be called, ‘The one who repairs broken walls, the one who makes the streets inhabitable again.’ ² 

Foreigners will rebuild your walls; their kings will serve you. Even though I struck you down in my anger, I will restore my favor and have compassion on you. ¹ 

They have built places here ¹  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ²  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

“‘Sure to be judged ¹  is the king who builds his palace using injustice and treats people unfairly while adding its upper rooms. ²  He makes his countrymen work for him for nothing. He does not pay them for their labor.

Does it make you any more of a king that you outstrip everyone else in ¹  building with cedar? Just think about your father. He was content that he had food and drink. ²  He did what was just and right. ³  So things went well with him.

I will look after their welfare ¹  and will restore them to this land. There I will build them up and will not tear them down. I will plant them firmly in the land ²  and will not uproot them. ³ 

For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ¹  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ² 

“Take some large stones ¹  and bury them in the mortar of the clay pavement ²  at the entrance of Pharaoh’s residence ³  here in Tahpanhes. Do it while the people of Judah present there are watching. ⁴ 

The Lord told Jeremiah, ¹  “Tell Baruch, ²  ‘The Lord says, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth. ³ 

Lay siege to it! Build siege works against it. Erect a siege ramp ¹  against it! Post soldiers outside it ²  and station battering rams around it.

“‘This is because they have led my people astray saying, “All is well,” ¹  when things are not well. When anyone builds a wall without mortar, ²  they coat it with whitewash.

Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help ¹  him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people.

He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will build a siege wall against you, erect a siege ramp against you, and raise a great shield against you.

I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place where fishing nets are spread. You will never be built again, ¹  for I, the Lord, have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will populate the cities and the ruins will be rebuilt.

By means of divine visions ¹  he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, ²  and on it was a structure like a city, to the south.

and the chamber which faces north is for the priests who keep charge of the altar. These are the descendants of Zadok, from the descendants of Levi, who may approach the Lord to minister to him.”

For they were in three stories and had no pillars like the pillars of the courts; therefore the upper chambers ¹  were set back from the ground more than the lower and upper ones.

“In that day I will rebuild the collapsing hut ¹  of David. I will seal its ²  gaps, repair its ³  ruins, and restore it to what it was like in days gone by. ⁴ 

I will bring back my people, Israel; ¹  they will rebuild the cities lying in rubble ²  and settle down. ³  They will plant vineyards and drink the wine they produce; ⁴  they will grow orchards ⁵  and eat the fruit they produce. ⁶