19Listen to me, O LORD—
And take note of g-what my enemies say!-g
20Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
To plead in their behalf,
To turn Your anger away from them!
21Oh, give their children over to famine,
Mow them down by the sword.
Let their wives be bereaved
Of children and husbands,
Let their men be struck down by the plague,
And their young men be slain in battle by the sword.
22Let an outcry be heard from their houses
When You bring sudden marauders against them;
For they have dug a pit to trap me,
And laid snares for my feet.
23O LORD, You know
All their plots to kill me.
Do not pardon their iniquity,
Do not blot out their guilt from Your presence.
Let them be made to stumble before You—
Act against them in Your hour of wrath!
19 Thus said the LORD: Go buy a jug of potter’s ware. And [take] some of the elders of the people and the priests, 2and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom—a-at the entrance of the Harsith Gate-a—and proclaim there the words which I will speak to you.
3Say: “Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of all who hear about it will tingle. 4For they and their fathers and the kings of Judah have forsaken Me, and have made this place alien [to Me]; they have sacrificed in it to other gods whom they have not experienced,b and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5They have built shrines to Baal, to put their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal—which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind. 6Assuredly, a time is coming—declares the LORD—when this place shall no longer be called Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Valley of Slaughter.
7“And I will frustratec the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those who seek their lives; and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. 8And I will make this city an object of horror and hissing;d everyone who passes by it will be appalled and will hiss over all its wounds. 9And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall devour one another’s flesh—because of the desperate straits to which they will be reduced by their enemies, who seek their life.”
10Then you shall smash the jug in the sight of the men who go with you, 11and say to them: “Thus said the LORD of Hosts: So will I smash this people and this city, as one smashes a potter’s vessel, which can never be mended. And they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left for burying. 12That is what I will do to this place and its inhabitants—declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth: 13the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be unclean, like that place Topheth—all the houses on the roofs of which offerings were made to the whole host of heaven and libations were poured out to other gods.”
14When Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the court of the House of the LORD and said to all the people: 15“Thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring upon this city and upon all its villages all the disaster which I have decreed against it, for they have stiffened their necks and refused to heed My words.”
20 Pashhur son of Immer, the priest who was chief officer of the House of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesy these things. 2Pashhur thereupon had Jeremiah flogged and put in the cella at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the House of the LORD. 3The next day, Pashhur released Jeremiah from the cell.
But Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD has named you not Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.b 4For thus said the LORD: I am going to deliver you and all your friends over to terror: they will fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. I will deliver all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon; he will exile them to Babylon or put them to the sword. 5And I will deliver all the wealth, all the riches, and all the prized possessions of this city, and I will also deliver all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hands of their enemies: they shall seize them as plunder and carry them off to Babylon. 6As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you shall go into captivity. You shall come to Babylon; there you shall die and there you shall be buried, and so shall all your friends to whom you prophesied falsely.”
7You enticed me, O LORD, and I was enticed;
You overpowered me and You prevailed.
I have become a constant laughingstock,
Everyone jeers at me.
8For every time I speak, I must cry out,
Must shout, “Lawlessness and rapine!”
For the word of the LORD causes me
Constant disgrace and contempt.
9I thought, “I will not mention Him,
No more will I speak in His name”—
But [His word] was like a raging fire in my heart,
Shut up in my bones;
I could not hold it in, I was helpless.
10I heard the whispers of the crowd—
Terror all around:
“Inform! Let us inform against him!”
All my [supposed] friends
Are waiting for me to stumble:
“Perhaps he can be entrapped,
And we can prevail against him
And take our vengeance on him.”
11But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
Therefore my persecutors shall stumble;
They shall not prevail and shall not succeed.
They shall be utterly shamed
With a humiliation for all time,
Which shall not be forgotten.
12O LORD of Hosts, You who test the righteous,
Who examine the heart and the mind,
Let me see Your retribution upon them,
For I lay my case before You.
13Sing unto the LORD,
Praise the LORD,
For He has rescued the needy
From the hands of evildoers!
14Accursed be the day
That I was born!
Let not the day be blessed
When my mother bore me!
15Accursed be the man
Who brought my father the news
And said, “A boy
Is born to you,”
And gave him such joy!
16Let that manc become like the cities
Which the LORD overthrew without relenting!
Let him hear shrieks in the morning
And battle shouts at noontide—
17Because he did not kill me before birth
So that my mother might be my grave,
And her womb big [with me] for all time.
18Why did I ever issue from the womb,
To see misery and woe,
To spend all my days in shame!
21 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchiah and the priest Zephaniah, son of Maaseiah, to say, 2“Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon is attacking us. Perhaps the LORD will act for our sake in accordance with all His wonders, so that [Nebuchadrezzar] will withdraw from us.”
3Jeremiah answered them, “Thus shall you say to Zedekiah: 4Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: I am going to turn around the weapons in your hands with which you are battling outside the wall against those who are besieging you—the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans—and I will take them into the midst of this city; 5and I Myself will battle against you with an outstretched mighty arm, with anger and rage and great wrath. 6I will strike the inhabitants of this city, man and beast: they shall die by a terrible pestilence. 7And then—declares the LORD—I will deliver King Zedekiah of Judah and his courtiers and the people—those in this city who survive the pestilence, the sword, and the famine—into the hands of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword without pity, without compassion, without mercy.
8“And to this people you shall say: Thus said the LORD: I set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever leaves and goes over to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live; a-he shall at least gain his life.-a 10For I have set My face against this city for evil and not for good—declares the LORD. It shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, who will destroy it by fire.”
11To the House of the king of Judah: Hear the word of the LORD! 12O House of David, thus said the LORD:
Render just verdicts
Morning by morning;
Rescue him who is robbed
From him who defrauded him.
Else My wrath will break forth like fire
And burn, with none to quench it,
Because of your wicked acts.
13I will deal with you, b-O inhabitants of the valley,
O rock of the plain-b—declares the LORD—
You who say, “Who can come down against us?
Who can get into our lairs?”
14I will punish you according to your deeds
—declares the LORD.
I will set fire to its forest;c
It shall consume all that is around it.
22 Thus said the LORD: Go down to the palace of the king of Judah, where you shall utter this word. 2Say: “Hear the word of the LORD: O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David,
