Then I said, “Lord, ¹  have you completely rejected the nation of Judah? Do you despise ²  the city of Zion? Why have you struck us with such force that we are beyond recovery? ³  We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it. We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. ⁴ 

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 

I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ³ 

But there were ten men among them who said ¹  to Ishmael, “Do not kill us. For we will give you the stores of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey we have hidden in a field. ²  So he spared their lives and did not kill ³  them along with the rest. ⁴ 

Then Azariah ¹  son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and other arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie! The Lord our God did not send you to tell us, ‘You must not go to Egypt and settle there.’

I will make many stumble. ¹  They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. ²  They will say, ‘Get up! Let’s go back to our own people. Let’s go back to our homelands because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’ ³ 

He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

“Son of man, your brothers, ¹  your relatives, ²  and the whole house of Israel, all of them are those to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem ³  have said, ‘They have gone ⁴  far away from the Lord; to us this land has been given as a possession.’

“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you have said: “Our rebellious acts and our sins have caught up with us, ¹  and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’

“Son of man, the ones living in these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land, but we are many; surely the land has been given to us for a possession.’ ¹ 

Just as it is written in the law of Moses, so all this calamity has come on us. Still we have not tried to pacify ¹  the LORD our God by turning back from our sin and by seeking wisdom ²  from your reliable moral standards. ³ 

Many nations will come, saying, “Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple ¹  of Jacob’s God, so he can teach us his commands ²  and we can live by his laws.” ³  For Zion will be the source of instruction; the Lord’s teachings will proceed from Jerusalem. ⁴ 

They will rule ¹  the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod ²  with a drawn sword. ³  Our king ⁴  will rescue us from the Assyrians should they attempt to invade our land and try to set foot in our territory.

I listened and my stomach churned; ¹  the sound made my lips quiver. My frame went limp, as if my bones were decaying, ²  and I shook as I tried to walk. ³  I long ⁴  for the day of distress to come upon ⁵  the people who attack us.

But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹  Then they paid attention ²  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

The Lord who rules over all says, ‘In those days ten people from all languages and nations will grasp hold of – indeed, grab – the robe of one Jew and say, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’” ¹ 

The men of Israel replied to the men of Judah, “We have ten shares in the king, and we have a greater claim on David than you do! Why do you want ¹  to curse us? Weren’t we the first to suggest bringing back our king?” But the comments of the men of Judah were more severe than those of the men of Israel.