The Living Bible (245 page)

Jeremiah
23

The Lord declares:

    
I will send disaster upon the leaders of my people—the shepherds of my sheep—for they have destroyed and scattered the very ones they were to care for.
²
 Instead of leading my flock to safety, you have deserted them and driven them to destruction. And now I will pour out judgment upon you for the evil you have done to them.
³
 And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from wherever I have sent them and bring them back into their own fold, and they shall be fruitful and increase.
⁴
 And I will appoint responsible shepherds to care for them, and they shall not need to be afraid again; all of them shall be accounted for continually.

    
^5-6
 For the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will place a righteous Branch upon King David’s throne. He shall be a King who shall rule with wisdom and justice and cause righteousness to prevail everywhere throughout the earth.
*
And this is his name:
The Lord Our Righteousness.
At that time Judah will be saved and Israel will live in peace.

    
⁷
 In that day people will no longer say when taking an oath, “As the Lord lives who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt,”
⁸
 but they will say, “As the Lord lives who brought the Jews back to their own land of Israel from the countries to which he had exiled them.”

    
⁹
 My heart is broken for the false prophets, full of deceit. I awake with fear and stagger as a drunkard does from wine because of the awful fate awaiting them,
*
for God has decreed holy words of judgment against them.
¹⁰
 For the land is full of adultery, and the curse of God is on it. The land itself is mourning—the pastures are dried up—for the prophets do evil, and their power is used wrongly.

    
¹¹
 The priests are like the prophets, all ungodly, wicked men. I have seen their despicable acts right here in my own Temple, says the Lord.
¹²
 Therefore, their paths will be dark and slippery; they will be chased down dark and treacherous trails and fall. For I will bring evil upon them and see to it, when their time has come, that they pay their penalty in full for all their sins.

    
¹³
 I knew the prophets of Samaria were unbelievably evil, for they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel into sin;
¹⁴
 but the prophets of Jerusalem are even worse! The things they do are horrible; they commit adultery and love dishonesty. They encourage and compliment those who are doing evil instead of turning them back from their sins. These prophets are as thoroughly depraved as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were.

    
¹⁵
 Therefore the Lord Almighty says: I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. For it is because of them that wickedness fills this land.
¹⁶
 This is my warning to my people, says the Lord Almighty. Don’t listen to these false prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for me!
¹⁷
 They keep saying to these rebels who despise me, “Don’t worry! All is well!”; and to those who live the way they want to, “The Lord has said you shall have peace!”

    
¹⁸
 But can you name even one of these prophets who lives close enough to God to hear what he is saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen?
¹⁹
 See, the Lord is sending a furious whirlwind to sweep away these wicked men.
²⁰
 The terrible anger of the Lord will not abate until it has carried out the full penalty he decrees against them. Later, when Jerusalem has fallen,
*
you will see what I mean.

    
²¹
 I have not sent these prophets, yet they claim to speak for me; I gave them no message, yet they say their words are mine.
²²
 If they were mine, they would try to turn my people from their evil ways.
²³
 Am I a God who is only in one place and cannot see what they are doing?
²⁴
 Can anyone hide from me? Am I not everywhere in all of heaven and earth?

    
²⁵
 “Listen to the dream I had from God last night,” they say. And then they proceed to lie in my name.
²⁶
 How long will this continue? If they are “prophets,” they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say.
²⁷
 By telling these false dreams they are trying to get my people to forget me in the same way as their fathers did, who turned away to the idols of Baal.
²⁸
 Let these false prophets tell their dreams and let my true messengers faithfully proclaim my every word. There is a difference between chaff and wheat!
²⁹
 Does not my word burn like fire? asks the Lord. Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashed the rock to pieces?
^30-31
 So I stand against these “prophets” who get their messages from each other—these smooth-tongued “prophets” who say, “This message is from God!”
³²
 Their made-up dreams are flagrant lies that lead my people into sin. I did not send them, and they have no message at all for my people, says the Lord.

    
³³
 When one of the people or one of their “prophets” or priests asks you, “Well, Jeremiah, what is the sad news from the Lord today?” you shall reply, “What sad news? You are the sad news, for the Lord has cast you away!”
³⁴
 And as for the false prophets and priests and people who joke about “today’s sad news from God,” I will punish them and their families for saying this.
³⁵
 You can ask each other, “What is God’s message? What is he saying?”
³⁶
 But stop using this term, “God’s sad news.” For what is sad is you and your lying. You are twisting my words and inventing “messages from God” that I didn’t speak.
³⁷
 You may respectfully ask Jeremiah, “What is the Lord’s message? What has he said to you?”
^38-39
 But if you ask him about “today’s sad news from God,” when I have warned you not to mock like that, then I, the Lord God, will unburden myself of the burden
*
you are to me. I will cast you out of my presence, you and this city I gave to you and your fathers.
⁴⁰
 And I will bring reproach upon you and your name shall be infamous through the ages.

Jeremiah
24

After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had captured and enslaved Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah, and exiled him to Babylon along with the princes of Judah and the skilled tradesmen—the carpenters and blacksmiths—the Lord gave me this vision.
²
 I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple in Jerusalem. In one basket there were fresh, just-ripened figs, but in the other the figs were spoiled and moldy—too rotten to eat.
³
 Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

    
I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad.”

    
^4-5
 Then the Lord said: “The good figs represent the exiles sent to Babylon. I have done it for their good.
⁶
 I will see that they are well treated, and I will bring them back here again. I will help them and not hurt them; I will plant them and not pull them up.
⁷
 I will give them hearts that respond to me. They shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with great joy.

    
⁸
 “But the rotten figs represent Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials, and all the others of Jerusalem left here in this land; those too who live in Egypt. I will treat them like spoiled figs, too bad to use.
⁹
 I will make them repulsive to every nation of the earth, and they shall be mocked and taunted and cursed wherever I compel them to go.
¹⁰
 And I will send massacre and famine and disease among them until they are destroyed from the land of Israel, which I gave to them and to their fathers.”

Jeremiah
25

This message for all the people of Judah came from the Lord to Jeremiah during the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah (son of Josiah). This was the year Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, began his reign.

    
^2-3
 For the past twenty-three years, Jeremiah said, from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (son of Amon) king of Judah, until now, God has been sending me his messages. I have faithfully passed them on to you, but you haven’t listened.
⁴
 Again and again down through the years, God has sent you his prophets, but you have refused to hear.
⁵
 Each time the message was this: “Turn from the evil road you are traveling and from the evil things you are doing. Only then can you continue to live here in this land which the Lord gave to you and to your ancestors forever.
⁶
 
Don’t anger me by worshiping idols; but if you are true to me, then I’ll not harm you.”
⁷
 But you won’t listen; you have gone ahead and made me furious with your idols. So you have brought upon yourselves all the evil that has come your way.

    
^8-9
 And now the Lord God says: Because you have not listened to me, I will gather together all the armies of the north under Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (I have appointed him as my deputy), and I will bring them all against this land and its people and against the other nations near you, and I will utterly destroy you and make you a byword of contempt forever.
¹⁰
 I will take away your joy, your gladness, and your wedding feasts; your businesses shall fail, and all your homes shall lie in silent darkness.
¹¹
 This entire land shall become a desolate wasteland; all the world will be shocked at the disaster that befalls you. Israel and her neighboring lands shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

    
¹²
 Then, after these years
*
of slavery are ended, I will punish the king of Babylon
*
and his people for their sins; I will make the land of Chaldea an everlasting waste.
¹³
 I will bring upon them all the terrors I have promised in this book—all the penalties announced by Jeremiah against the nations.
¹⁴
 For many nations and great kings shall enslave the Chaldeans, just as they enslaved my people; I will punish them in proportion to their treatment of my people.

    
¹⁵
 For the Lord God said to me: “Take from my hand this wine cup filled to the brim with my fury, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it.
¹⁶
 They shall drink from it and reel, crazed by the death blows I rain upon them.”

    
¹⁷
 So I took the cup of fury from the Lord and made all the nations drink from it—every nation God had sent me to;
¹⁸
 I went to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah, and their kings and princes drank of the cup so that from that day until this they have been desolate, hated, and cursed, just as they are today.
^19-20
 I went to Egypt, and Pharaoh, his servants, the princes, and the people—they too drank from that terrible cup, along with all the foreign population living in his land. So did all the kings of the land of Uz and the kings of the Philistine cities: Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what remains of Ashdod,
²¹
 and I visited the nations of Edom, Moab, and Ammon;
²²
 and all the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the regions across the sea;
²³
 Dedan, Tema, and Buz, and the other heathen there;
²⁴
 and all the kings of Arabia and of the nomadic tribes of the desert;
²⁵
 and all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media;
²⁶
 and all the kings of the northern countries, far and near, one after the other; and all the kingdoms of the world. And finally, the king of Babylon himself drank from this cup of God’s wrath.

    
²⁷
 Tell them, “The Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: Drink from this cup of my wrath until you are drunk and vomit and fall to rise no more, for I am sending terrible wars upon you.”
²⁸
 And if they refuse to accept the cup, tell them, “The Lord of heaven’s armies says you
must
drink it! You cannot escape!
²⁹
 I have begun to punish my own people, so should you go free? No, you shall not evade punishment. I will call for war against all the peoples of the earth.”

    
³⁰
 Therefore prophesy against them. Tell them the Lord will shout against his own from his holy temple in heaven and against all those living on the earth. He will shout as the harvesters do who tread the juice from the grapes.
³¹
 That cry of judgment will reach the farthest ends of the earth, for the Lord has a case against all the nations—all mankind. He will slaughter all the wicked.
³²
 See, declares the Lord Almighty, the punishment shall go from nation to nation—a great whirlwind of wrath shall rise against the farthest corners of the earth.
³³
 On that day those the Lord has slain shall fill the earth from one end to the other. No one shall mourn for them nor gather up the bodies to bury them; they shall fertilize the earth.

    
³⁴
 Weep and moan, O evil shepherds; let the leaders of mankind beat their heads upon the stones, for their time has come to be slaughtered and scattered; they shall fall like fragile women.
³⁵
 And you will find no place to hide, no way to escape.

    
³⁶
 Listen to the frantic cries of the shepherds and to the leaders shouting in despair, for the Lord has spoiled their pastures.
³⁷
 People now living undisturbed will be cut down by the fierceness of the anger of the Lord.
³⁸
 He has left his lair like a lion seeking prey; their land has been laid waste by warring armies—because of the fierce anger of the Lord.