I said, “Indeed, ¹  let them come quickly and sing a song of mourning for us. Let them wail loudly until tears stream from our own eyes and our eyelids overflow with water.

A destructive army ¹  will come marching over the hilltops in the desert. For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ²  against ³  everyone from one end of the land to the other. No one will be safe. ⁴ 

“The people of Judah are in mourning. The people in her cities are pining away. They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. ¹  Cries of distress come up to me ²  from Jerusalem. ³ 

Yet ¹  I, the Lord, say: ²  “A new time will certainly come. ³  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’

So I, the Lord, say: ¹  “The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter!

“Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ¹  because King Nebuchadnezzar ²  of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles as in times past and make him stop attacking us and leave.” ³ 

“So I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘A new time will certainly come. ²  People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.”

But just watch! ¹  The wrath of the Lord will come like a storm! ²  Like a raging storm it will rage down ³  on the heads of those who are wicked.

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says, ‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. ²  A mighty storm of military destruction ³  is rising up from the distant parts of the earth.’

Wail and cry out in anguish, you rulers! Roll in the dust, you who shepherd flocks of people! ¹  The time for you to be slaughtered has come. You will lie scattered and fallen like broken pieces of fine pottery. ² 

Use it to send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, ¹  and Sidon. ²  Send them through ³  the envoys who have come to Jerusalem ⁴  to King Zedekiah of Judah.

‘Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you soon. He will say to you, “Buy my field at Anathoth because you are entitled ¹  as my closest relative to buy it.”’ ² 

“I, Lord, make the following promise: ¹  ‘I have made a covenant with the day ²  and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people ³  could break that covenant

All the officials did indeed come and question Jeremiah. ¹  He told them exactly what the king had instructed him to say. ²  They stopped questioning him any further because no one had actually heard their conversation. ³ 

Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them. He was pretending to cry ¹  as he walked along. When he met them, he said to them, “Come with me to meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam.” ² 

Instead Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers led off all the Judean remnant who had come back to live in the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been scattered. ¹ 

Egypt will run away, hissing like a snake, ¹  as the enemy comes marching up in force. They will come against her with axes as if they were woodsmen chopping down trees.

The destroyer will come against every town. Not one town will escape. The towns in the valley will be destroyed. The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. ¹  I, the Lord, have spoken! ² 

Come down from your place of honor; sit on the dry ground, ¹  you who live in Dibon. ²  For the one who will destroy Moab will attack you; he will destroy your fortifications.

“When that time comes,” says the Lord, ¹  “the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together. They will come back with tears of repentance as they seek the Lord their God. ²