The prophet Jeremiah answered them, “Agreed! ¹  I will indeed pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you everything the Lord replies in response to you. ²  I will not keep anything back from you.”

They answered Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do just as ¹  the Lord sends you to tell us to do.

You are making a fatal mistake. ¹  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ² 

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 

Therefore tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: I hereby end this proverb; they will not recite it in Israel any longer.’ But say to them, ‘The days are at hand when every vision will be fulfilled. ¹ 

Tell the ones who coat it with whitewash that it will fall. When there is a deluge of rain, hailstones ¹  will fall and a violent wind will break out. ² 

“Therefore, speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In this way too your fathers blasphemed me when they were unfaithful to me.

Suppose I tell the righteous that he will certainly live, but he becomes confident in his righteousness and commits iniquity. None of his righteous deeds will be remembered; because of the iniquity he has committed he will die.

Therefore prophesy, and tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to open your graves and will raise you from your graves, my people. I will bring you to the land of Israel.

Then tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to take the Israelites from among the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from round about and bring them to their land.

They said to him, “Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? ¹  What’s your occupation? Where do you come from? What’s your country? And who are your people?” ² 

and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones!

I ¹  tell you the truth, ²  until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter ³  will pass from the law until everything takes place.

Thus whenever you do charitable giving, ¹  do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues ²  and on streets so that people will praise them. I tell you the truth, ³  they have their reward.

“When ¹  you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive ²  so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, ³  they have their reward.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry ¹  about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?

When ¹  Jesus heard this he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “I tell you the truth, ²  I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel!

Whenever ¹  they persecute you in one place, ²  flee to another. I tell you the truth, ³  you will not finish going through all the towns ⁴  of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, I tell you the truth, ¹  he will never lose his reward.”

“I tell you the truth, ¹  among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least ²  in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.