Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: ²  My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. ³  I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, ⁴  because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated. ⁵ 

But just suppose you continue to say, ‘The message of the Lord is burdensome.’ Here is what the Lord says will happen: ‘I sent word to you that you must not say, “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” But you used the words “The Lord’s message is burdensome” anyway.

He said through them, ¹  ‘Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and stop doing the evil things you are doing. ²  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live here in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors as a lasting possession. ³ 

Then I will reply, ¹  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north. I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth. Blind and lame people will come with them, so will pregnant women and women about to give birth. A vast throng of people will come back here.

All the officials sent Jehudi, who was the son of Nethaniah and the grandson of Cushi, to Baruch. They ordered him to tell Baruch, “Come here and bring with you ¹  the scroll you read in the hearing of the people.” ²  So Baruch son of Neriah went to them, carrying the scroll in his hand. ³ 

They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ²  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ³ 

That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. ¹  You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses ²  and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth. ³ 

He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose! ¹ 

“Say to the rebellious house of Israel: ¹  ‘Don’t you know what these things mean?’ ²  Say: ‘See here, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem ³  and took her king and her officials prisoner and brought them to himself in Babylon.

The man said to me, “Son of man, watch closely, listen carefully, and pay attention ¹  to everything I show you, for you have been brought here so that I can show it to you. ²  Tell the house of Israel everything you see.”

For here he is! He ¹  formed the mountains and created the wind. He reveals ²  his plans ³  to men. He turns the dawn into darkness ⁴  and marches on the heights of the earth. The Lord, the God who commands armies, ⁵  is his name!”

I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go ¹  and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle ²  or perish from starvation. People of every class ³  will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ⁴ 

and say to the scrub land of the Negev, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, ¹  I am about to start a fire in you, ²  and it will devour every green tree and every dry tree in you. The flaming fire will not be extinguished, and the whole surface of the ground from the Negev to the north will be scorched by it.