Then King Zedekiah ordered that Jeremiah be committed to the courtyard of the guardhouse. He also ordered that a loaf of bread ¹  be given to him every day from the baker’s street until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah was kept ²  in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

“Your royal Majesty, those men have been very wicked in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern and he is sure to die of starvation there because there is no food left in the city. ¹ 

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ¹  says, ‘You must surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon. If you do, your life will be spared ²  and this city will not be burned down. Indeed, you and your whole family will be spared.

“Go ¹  and tell Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, “I will carry out against this city what I promised. It will mean disaster and not good fortune for it. ²  When that disaster happens, you will be there to see it. ³ 

א (Alef) ^{1  2} Alas! ³  The city once full of people ⁴  now sits all alone! ⁵  The prominent ⁶  lady among the nations has become a widow! ⁷  The princess ⁸  who once ruled the provinces ⁹  has become a forced laborer!

He said to me, “The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, ¹  for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!’ ² 

The Lord ¹  said to the man dressed in linen, “Go between the wheelwork ²  underneath the cherubim. ³  Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” He went as I watched.

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city ¹  was struck down, on this very day, ²  the hand ³  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. ⁴ 

It was like the vision I saw when he ¹  came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.

The property of the Levites and of the city will be in the middle of that which belongs to the prince. The portion between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin will be for the prince.

O Lord, according to all your justice, ¹  please turn your raging anger ²  away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain. For due to our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people are mocked by all our neighbors.

“Seventy weeks ¹  have been determined concerning your people and your holy city to put an end to ²  rebellion, to bring sin ³  to completion, ⁴  to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual ⁵  righteousness, to seal up ⁶  the prophetic vision, ⁷  and to anoint a most holy place. ⁸ 

Now after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. ¹  As for the city and the sanctuary, the people of the coming prince will destroy ²  them. But his end will come speedily ³  like a flood. ⁴  Until the end of the war that has been decreed there will be destruction.

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. ¹  The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. ²  They will have no strength to prevail.

Twist and strain, ¹  Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor! For you will leave the city and live in the open field. You will go to Babylon, but there you will be rescued. There the Lord will deliver ²  you from the power ³  of your enemies.

“I am a Jew, ¹  born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up ²  in this city, educated with strictness ³  under ⁴  Gamaliel ⁵  according to the law of our ancestors, ⁶  and was ⁷  zealous ⁸  for God just as all of you are today.

The one who conquers ¹  I will make ²  a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never depart from it. I ³  will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from my God), ⁴  and my new name as well.

And they threw dust on their heads and were shouting with weeping and mourning, ¹  “Woe, Woe, O great city – in which all those who had ships on the sea got rich from her wealth – because in a single hour she has been destroyed!” ² 

When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at a city of Moab which was on the border of the Arnon at the boundary of his territory.

some evil people ¹  have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, ²  saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods” (whom you have not known before). ³