¹ Your dead will come back to life; your corpses will rise up. Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! ²  For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, ³  and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. ⁴ 

The Lord’s messenger ¹  went out and killed 185,000 troops ²  in the Assyrian camp. When they ³  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ⁴ 

“I, I am the one who consoles you. ¹  Why are you afraid of mortal men, of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ² 

“They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, ¹  and the fire that consumes them will not die out. ²  All people will find the sight abhorrent.” ³ 

Then the Lord told me about ¹  some men from Anathoth ²  who were threatening to kill me. ³  They had threatened, ⁴  “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!” ⁵ 

Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹ 

No one will take any food to those who mourn for the dead to comfort them. No one will give them any wine to drink to console them for the loss of their father or mother.

Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ¹ 

“‘Do not weep for the king who was killed. Do not grieve for him. But weep mournfully for the king who has gone into exile. For he will never return to see his native land again. ¹ 

For he will die in the country where they took him as a captive. He will never see this land again.” ¹ 

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to ¹  a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

When the king and all his bodyguards ¹  and officials heard what he was prophesying, ²  the king sought to have him executed. But Uriah found out about it and fled to Egypt out of fear. ³ 

However, Ahikam son of Shaphan ¹  used his influence to keep Jeremiah from being handed over and executed by the people. ² 

There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ¹  or from starvation or disease! ²  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ³  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ¹  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ² 

However, listen to what I, the Lord, promise you, King Zedekiah of Judah. I, the Lord, promise that ¹  you will not die in battle or be executed. ² 

But now please listen, your royal Majesty, ¹  and grant my plea for mercy. ²  Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan, the royal secretary. If you do, I will die there.” ³ 

If they do this, tell ¹  them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to die in the dungeon of Jonathan’s house.’” ² 

So now be very sure of this: You will die from war, starvation, or disease in the place where you want to go and live.”

But Baruch son of Neriah is stirring you up against us. ¹  He wants to hand us over ²  to the Babylonians ³  so that they will kill us or carry us off into exile in Babylon.”