So do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim to predict the future by divination, ¹  by dreams, by consulting the dead, ²  or by practicing magic. They keep telling you, ‘You do not need to be ³  subject to the king of Babylon.’

We and our wives and our sons and daughters have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. We have never drunk wine. ¹ 

So King Zedekiah made a secret promise to Jeremiah and sealed it with an oath. He promised, ¹  “As surely as the Lord lives who has given us life and breath, ²  I promise you this: I will not kill you or hand you over to those men who want to kill you.” ³ 

You must not say, ‘No, we will not stay. Instead we will go and live in the land of Egypt where we will not face war, ¹  or hear the enemy’s trumpet calls, ²  or starve for lack of food.’ ³ 

“For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ¹  by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ²  For the land of Babylonia is ³  full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. ⁴ 

This city will not be a cooking pot for you, and you will not ¹  be meat within it; I will judge you at the border of Israel.

Then you will know that I am the Lord, whose statutes you have not followed and whose regulations you have not carried out. Instead you have behaved according to the regulations of the nations around you!’”

Therefore you will no longer see false visions and practice divination. I will rescue my people from your power, and you ¹  will know that I am the Lord.’”

Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for the sake of my reputation and not according to your wicked conduct and corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! ¹  For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit ²  against the people of Israel. ³  For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God. ⁴ 

When Ephraim saw ¹  his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then Ephraim turned ²  to Assyria, and begged ³  its great king ⁴  for help. But he will not be able to heal you! He cannot cure your wound! ⁵ 

Be certain of this, ¹  the time is ²  coming,” says the sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation! ³ 

You should not ¹  have gloated ²  when your relatives ³  suffered calamity. ⁴  You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. ⁵  You should not have boasted ⁶  when they suffered adversity. ⁷ 

Those survivors from ¹  Jacob will live ²  in the midst of many nations. ³  They will be like the dew the Lord sends, like the rain on the grass, that does not hope for men to come or wait around for humans to arrive. ⁴ 

how he entered the house of God and they ate ¹  the sacred bread, ²  which was against the law ³  for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests? ⁴ 

for he will be great in the sight of ¹  the Lord. He ²  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ³ 

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, ¹  because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides ²  with you and will be ³  in you.

For the people who live in Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize ¹  him, ²  and they fulfilled the sayings ³  of the prophets that are read every Sabbath by condemning ⁴  him. ⁵ 

Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, ¹  but not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are perishing.

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing these things so that something will be done for me. ¹  In fact, it would be better for me to die than – no one will deprive me of my reason for boasting! ²