“For just as the new heavens and the new earth I am about to make will remain standing before me,” says the Lord, “so your descendants and your name will remain.

Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught, so the people of Israel ¹  will suffer dishonor for what they have done. ²  So will their kings and officials, their priests and their prophets.

So I will destroy this temple which I have claimed as my own, ¹  this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, ²  just like I destroyed Shiloh. ³ 

“I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? ²  In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’

Should good be paid back with evil? Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. ¹  Just remember how I stood before you pleading on their behalf ²  to keep you from venting your anger on them. ³ 

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.

Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people. All at once some ¹  of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, “You deserve to die! ² 

Now there was another man ¹  who prophesied as the Lord’s representative ²  against this city and this land just as Jeremiah did. His name was Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim. ³ 

In those days and at that time I will raise up for them a righteous descendant ¹  of David. “‘He will do what is just and right in the land.

Now he has brought it about. The Lord has done just as he threatened to do. This disaster has happened because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him. ¹ 

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.

So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: ¹  ‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria.

I will destroy Babylonia just like I did Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns. No one will live there. ¹  No human being will settle in it,” says the Lord. ² 

כ (Kaf) All her people groaned as they searched for a morsel of bread. ¹  They exchanged ²  their valuables ³  for ⁴  just enough food to stay alive. ⁵ “Look, O Lord! Consider ⁶  that I have become worthless!”

ת (Tav) Let all their wickedness come before you; afflict ¹  them just as you have afflicted ²  me ³  because of all my acts of rebellion. ⁴  For my groans are many, and my heart is sick with sorrow. ⁵ 

So I got up and went out to the valley, and the glory of the Lord was standing there, just like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, ¹  and I threw myself face down.

“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not suffer ¹  for his father’s iniquity?’ When the son does what is just and right, and observes all my statutes and carries them out, he will surely live.

“But if the wicked person turns from all the sin he has committed and observes all my statutes and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the sovereign Lord.

They will treat you with hatred, take away all you have labored for, ¹  and leave you naked and bare. Your nakedness will be exposed, just as when you engaged in prostitution and obscene conduct. ²