4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart, and appointed you as a prophet to the nations." 6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." 7 But the LORD replied to me, "Do not say that you are too young, because everywhere I send you, you shall go and speak what I tell you to say." 8 "Do not be afraid of them, for I will deliver you," says the LORD.

9 Then the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and said to me, "Behold, I have put My words in your mouth." 10 "See, I have appointed you over the nations and kingdoms today. You will root out and pull down, destroy and overthrow. You will also build and plant."

11 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "I see the branch of an almond tree." 12 The LORD said to me, "You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that My word is performed."

13 The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north." 14 The LORD said to me, "Disaster will be poured out from the north on all who live in the land." 15 "I am about to summon all the kingdoms by way of the north," declares the LORD."Their kings will set up their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will also come against all the towns of Judah." 16 "I will pronounce My judgments on Judah concerning all her wickedness, and the ways she has forsaken Me by offering sacrifices to other gods and each one worshipping the work of his own hands."

17 "Make yourself ready to stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be afraid, for I will make you a terror before them." 18 "Today I have made you like a fortified city, as a pillar of iron and walls of bronze against kings and priests and all the people of the land." 19 "They will fight against you, but not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you, " says the LORD.

Jeremiah 2 - RWB Paraphrase (37 V)
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Israel Turns Away From God
1 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 "Go and proclaim to Jerusalem that I am the LORD and tell them that I remember their devotion in their youth, when they first followed after Me in the wilderness where there were no crops to harvest." 3 "Israel was holy to the LORD, the first of His harvest. I declared that all who would harm her should come to great grief."

4 Now hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and every family in Israel. 5 Thus says the LORD, "What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they should wander far from Me into vanity?" 6 "They did not look for the One who brought them out of Egypt and through the wilderness, a place without water and where there were no people."

7 "I brought you into a fruitful land to enjoy its good things. But you have defiled the land, making an abomination of My inheritance."

8 "The priests did not seek Me. Those who handle the law did not know me. The rulers transgressed against Me and the prophets prophesied by Baal. They walked after that which did not profit them."

9 "Therefore, I will contend with you and your sons, " declares the LORD. 10 "Look as far as the coasts of Kittim and as far as Kedar. Look carefully to see if there has ever been anything like this!" 11 "Has a nation ever changed its gods, though they are not actually gods? But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols."

12 "Be appalled, O heavens, be shocked, and utterly desolate," says the LORD. 13 "For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

14 "Is Israel a slave? Or was he born a slave? Why has he become plunder?" 15 "The young lions have roared loudly at him, and they have made his land a waste. His cities have been destroyed and become uninhabited."

16 "The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head." 17 "Have you not done this to yourself by forsaking the LORD your God after He led you in the way?" 18 "So why go to Egypt to drink water from the Nile? Why go to Assyria to drink water from the Euphrates River?" 19 "You will be reproved and corrected by your own wickedness. See that it is bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God. The dread of Me is not in you, " declares the LORD GOD of hosts. 20 "For I took off your bonds and broke the yoke upon you long ago. Then you said that you would not serve Me. You have lain with a harlot on every high hill and under every green tree." 21 "Yet I planted you as a choice vine from good seed. How is it that you have turned away from Me to become a degenerate vine?"

22 "Even if you should wash yourself with lye and much soap, the stain of your iniquity is before Me, " declares the LORD GOD. 23 "How can you say, that you are not defiled, having gone after the Baals? Look at your conduct! Admit what you have done! You are like a swift young camel running here and there," 24 "or a wild female donkey accustomed to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her passion. Who can restrain her? Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves. When she is ready they will find her."

25 "Keep your feet from being unshod and your throat from thirst. But you have said, 'It is hopeless, isn't it! For I have loved strangers, and followed them!'" 26 "The thief is ashamed when he is discovered, and so the house of Israel is shamed. Their kings, their princes, their priests and prophets," 27 "saying to a tree, 'You are my father,' and to a stone, 'You gave life to me.' For they have turned their back to Me, but in the time of their trouble they will say to Me, 'Arise and save us.'" 28 "But I will answer, 'Where are your gods which you made for yourselves? Let them save you from your troubles. You have as many gods as you have cities.'" 29 "Why do you contend with Me, seeing how you have all transgressed against Me, " declares the LORD.

30 "In vain I have punished your people. They have not accepted chastening. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion."

31 "O generation, consider the word of the LORD. Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, 'We are free to roam. We will come to You no more?'" 32 "Does a maiden forget her jewels, or a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number."

33 "How skilled you are at pursuing love! Even the wicked women can learn from you."

34 On your clothing men find the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them actually doing wrong. But in spite of all this, 35 "you say that you are innocent. Surely His anger is turned away from me. Behold, I will enter into judgment against you because you say that you have not sinned." 36 "Why do you go about so easily changing your allegiance? You shall be ashamed because of Egypt as you were of Assyria." 37 "From this place you will go out with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper with them."

Jeremiah 3 - RWB Paraphrase (25 V)
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Israel Is Like A Faithless Wife
1 God says, "If a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still take her back? Would this not pollute the land? The LORD declares, 'You, O Israel, are a harlot with many lovers, yet you now turn to Me.'." 2 "Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see. Where have you not been violated? You have sat by the roads like an Arab in the desert, and polluted a land with your harlotry and wickedness." 3 "Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute, refusing to blush with shame."

4 "You call, saying to Me, 'My Father, my friend from my youth.'." 5 "'Will He be angry forever?' Behold, you have done evil things and have gone your own way."

6 During the days of Josiah the LORD said to me, "Have you seen how faithless Israel has become? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, to practice harlotry." 7 "I thought that after she had done these things, she would return to Me. But she has not. And her treacherous sister Judah watched." 8 "Because of the adulteries of faithless Israel, I divorced her and sent her away. Yet Judah who watched this became a harlot as well." 9 "Because Israel's immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land committed adultery by worshiping stones and trees." 10 "And treacherous Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but instead with deception."

11 The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah." 12 "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, saying, 'The LORD says to return, O faithless Israel. I will not look upon you in anger. For I am gracious, and I will not be angry forever.'." 13 "Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God and have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree, and have not obeyed My voice, " declares the LORD. 14 "Return, faithless people, for I am your husband. I will choose you, one from a town and two from a family. I will bring you to Zion." 15 "Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding." 16 "In those days when you have multiplied and increased in the land, " declares the LORD, "You will not remember or miss the ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will not be made again." 17 "At that time Jerusalem will be called the throne of the LORD, and all the nations will gathered to it, for the name of the LORD. They will not walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart." 18 "The house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel. And they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance."

19 I said, "How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I thought you would call me Father, and not turn from following Me." 20 "Surely, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to Me, O house of Israel, " says the LORD. 21 "A cry is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel, because they have perverted their ways, having forgotten the LORD their God."

22 "Return, O faithless sons, and I will heal your faithlessness." And they reply, "Behold, we come to You, for You art the LORD our God." 23 "Truly the hills with their orgies are a delusion. Truly, the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God." 24 "These shameful acts have consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth, along with their flocks and herds, their sons and their daughters." 25 "Let us lie down in shame, and be covered with humiliation. For we and our fathers have sinned against the LORD our God, and it continues to this day. For we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God."

Jeremiah 4 - RWB Paraphrase (31 V)
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Destruction Rolls Over The Land
1 The LORD declares, "O Israel, you should return to Me. If you will put away your detestable things from My presence, and not waver," 2 "and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, 'As surely as the LORD lives,' then the nations will be blessed by Him and in Him they will glory." 3 For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, "Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns." 4 "Circumcise yourselves to the LORD and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else your evil deeds will cause My wrath to go forth like unquenchable fire." 5 Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, saying, "Blow the trumpet in the land. Cry aloud and say, 'Assemble yourselves, and go into the fortified cities.'" 6 "Lift up a standard toward Zion! Seek refuge. Do not stand still, for I am bringing evil from the north, and great destruction." 7 "A lion has come out of his lair, a destroyer of nations in on his way. He is coming to lay waste to your land. Your towns will lie in ruins without inhabitant."

8 "Put on sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the LORD has not turned back from us." 9 "In that day," the LORD says, "The heart of the king and of the princes, shall fail. The priests will be appalled and the prophets will be astounded."

10 Then I said, "Ah, LORD God! You have completely deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace,' when the sword is at our throats." 11 At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A scorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness comes toward the daughter of My people. It will not be to winnow or cleanse." 12 "It will be too strong for that. I will send it as judgment against them."

13 "Look! He goes up like the clouds, his chariots come like a whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! We are ruined!"

14 "Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long will you hold on to your wickedness?" 15 "For a voice declares from Dan, proclaiming affliction from Mount Ephraim." 16 "Report it to the nations. Publish the news against Jerusalem. Besiegers come from a far country speaking against the cities of Judah." 17 "Like keepers of a field they are against her, for she has rebelled against Me," says the LORD. 18 "Your ways and your deeds have brought these things upon you. This evil is your own. How bitterly it has touched your heart!"

19 "O my soul, I am in anguish. My heart pounds within me. I can not be silent at the sound of the trumpet, at the alarm of war." 20 "Disaster upon disaster is proclaimed. The whole land is devastated, my tents and my curtains are spoiled in an instant." 21 "How long must I see the standard of the enemy and hear the sound of their trumpet?"

22 "My people are foolish, they know Me not. They are stupid children and have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good."

23 "I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty, and at the heavens, and their light was gone." 24 "I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved back and forth." 25 "I saw no man and the birds were gone." 26 "The fruitful land had become a wilderness. The cities were all pulled down before the LORD's fierce anger." 27 For thus says the LORD, "The whole land shall be a desolation. Yet I will not execute a complete destruction." 28 "For the earth shall mourn and the heavens be dark, because I have spoken. I will not change My mind, or turn back from doing it."

29 "At the sound of the horsemen and those with bows, the whole city flees. They shall hide in the brush and the rocks. No one will stay in the cities."

30 "And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Although you dress in scarlet, decorating yourself with ornaments of gold, and making your eyes large with paint, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you, and seek your life." 31 "I hear a cry as of a woman in labor, a groan as of one bearing her first child. It is the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, 'I am fainting. My life is given over to murderers.'"

Jeremiah 5 - RWB Paraphrase (31 V)
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No Respect For God
1 "Roam around the streets of Jerusalem and look in her open squares to see if you can find even one man who does justice and seeks truth. If you find one I will pardon Jerusalem." 2 "Even though they say, 'As the LORD lives,' surely they swear falsely." 3 "O LORD, aren't you looking for truth? You struck them, but they did not react. You crushed them, but they refused to be corrected. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent." 4 I thought, "These are poor, foolish people, who do not know the LORD's requirements." 5 "I will speak to the great men, for they know the LORD's ways and ordinances." But they too broke the yoke and burst the bonds. 6 "Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them. A wolf from the desert will ravage them, and a leopard will lie in wait near their towns to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great and their backslidings are many."

7 "Why should I pardon you? Your sons have forsaken Me and sworn by those who are not gods. After I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the harlot's house." 8 "They are well fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man's wife." 9 "Shall I not punish a nation such as this? Shall I not avenge Myself?" Says the LORD. 10 "Go destroy her rows of vines, but do not execute a complete destruction. Strip away her branches that are not the LORD's."

11 "The houses of Israel and Judah have been utterly unfaithful to me," declares the LORD. 12 "They have lied about the LORD, saying, 'He won't do any harm to us. We will never see the sword or famine.'"

13 "The prophets are but wind and the My word is not in them. So let what they say be done to them."

14 Therefore this is what the LORD God Almighty says, "Because the people have spoken thus, I will make My words in your mouth a fire and these people will be consumed as wood by it." 15 "I am bringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel, " declares the lord." it is an enduring and ancient nation, whose language you do not know. You will not understand what they say." 16 "Their quiver is like an open grave. They are all mighty men." 17 "They shall eat up your harvest and devour your sons and daughters. They will use up your flocks and herds, and devour the fruit of your vines and fig trees. They will demolish your fortified cities with the sword. You were wrong to have trusted in fortifications." 18 "Yet even in those days," declares the LORD, "I will not completely destroy you."

19 "It shall come about when they say, 'Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?' Then you shall say to them, 'As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.'."

20 "Declare this in the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah, saying," 21 "now hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, and ears but do not hear." 22 "Do you not fear Me?" Declares the lord."do you not tremble in My presence? Do you not see how the sea obeys My decree? Though the waves toss and roar, they cannot go beyond their limit." 23 "But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside, and departed from Me." 24 "They do not say in their heart, 'Let us now fear the LORD our God, who gives rains in its seasons, appointing the times of harvest.'." 25 "Your iniquities have turned the rains away, and your sins have withheld good from you." 26 "For wicked men are found among My people. They watch like fowlers lying in wait, to set a trap to catch men." 27 "Their houses are full of deceit like a cage full of birds. In this way they have made themselves rich." 28 "Their deeds of wickedness have made them fat and sleek. They do not plead for the orphan or defend the rights of the poor."

29 "Shall I not punish these people?" Declares the LORD, "On a nation such as this shall I not avenge Myself?" 30 "An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land." 31 "The prophets make false prophesy, and the priests rule by their own authority. And My people want this! But what will you do when it all comes to and end?"

Jeremiah 6 - RWB Paraphrase (30 V)
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Jerusalem's Last Warning
1 "O you children of Benjamin, Gather yourselves to flee from Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a signal fire in Beth Haccerem, for disaster and great destruction appears out of the north." 2 "I will destroy the daughter of Zion, so beautiful and delicate." 3 "The shepherds with their flocks shall come to her. They shall pitch their tents around her. Each one shall pasture in his own place."

4 "Prepare for battle! Arise, let us attack at noon! But, alas, the daylight is fading, and the evening shadows grow long." 5 "We will attack at night and destroy her palaces." 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts, "Cut down her trees and build up a siege against Jerusalem's wall. This city is to be punished, in whose midst oppression is rampant."

7 "As a well pours out its water, so she pours out her wickedness. Violence and destruction resound in her. Her sickness and wounds are ever before me." 8 "Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I depart from you, and make you an uninhabited land." 9 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "They will thoroughly glean the vine, the remnant of Israel, passing over the branches twice, leaving nothing."

10 "Who will listen to my warning? Everyone's ears are closed. The Word of the LORD has become a reproach to them." 11 "I am full of the wrath of the LORD and weary of holding it in. Pour it out on every last one, young and old, husband wife." 12 "Their house will be given to others along with their fields and wives. I will stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land," says the LORD. 13 "Every last one of them is greedy for gain. Even the prophet and the priest deal falsely." 14 "Any healing that takes place is superficial. They say, 'Peace,' when there is none." 15 "They are not ashamed of the abomination they have done. They do not even blush. So I will punish them by casting them down," says the LORD.

16 This is what the LORD says, "Stand at the crossroads and ask for the ancient paths, and walk in them. You will find rest for your souls. But you have said, 'We will not walk in it.'." 17 "I appointed watchmen over you and said, 'Listen to the sound of the trumpet!' But you would not listen."

18 "Therefore hear, O nations, and know what will happen to them." 19 "Behold, I am bringing disaster on this people. It is the fruit of their devices, because they have not listened to My words, and have rejected My law." 20 "What purpose is served by the frankincense brought to Me from Sheba, or the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable and your sacrifices do not please Me."

21 So here is what the LORD says, "Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people. Fathers and sons together, neighbor and friend will perish." 22 Hear what the LORD says, "An army is coming from the land of the north. A great nation is being stirred up from the remote parts of the earth." 23 "They have bow and spear and will come without mercy. They come on horses. The sound is like the roaring of the sea. They are arrayed for battle against you, O daughter of Zion!" 24 "We have heard the report of this and our hands are limp as anguish has seized us, something like a woman's anguish in childbirth." 25 "Do not go out into the field or walk on the road. The enemy is there with a sword. Terror is on every side." 26 "O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes, for the destroyer will come upon us."

27 "I have made you a tester of metals and my people the ore, that you may observe and test their ways." 28 "They are all hardened rebels, slanderers. They are bronze and iron. They all act corruptly." 29 "The bellows blow fiercely, and the lead is consumed by the fire. In vain the refining goes on, but their wickedness is not separated from them." 30 "They are like rejected silver, because the LORD has rejected them."

Jeremiah 7 - RWB Paraphrase (34 V)
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The People Indulge In False Worship
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 "stand in the gate of the LORD's house and proclaim these words, saying, 'Hear the Word of the LORD, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the LORD!'" 3 The LORD God of Israel says, "Amend your ways and I will let you continue to live here." 4 "Do not think that because the temple of the LORD is here it will save you from what is coming." 5 "If you truly change your ways, practicing justice with each other," 6 "and do not oppress the alien, the orphan and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood, or walk after other gods to your own ruin," 7 "then I will let you continue to live in the land I gave to your fathers."

8 "Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail." 9 "Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, swear falsely, offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known," 10 "and then stand before me in this house which is called by My name, and ask Me to deliver you, so that you may continue to do these things?" 11 "Behold, I the LORD have seen how this house that is called by My name has become a den of robbers." 12 "Go to Shiloh, where I first made My name to dwell and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel." 13 "And now, declares the LORD, because you have done these same things, which I spoke about to you, and you would not listen," 14 "therefore, I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, the same as I did to Shiloh." 15 "I will cast you out of My sight, as I did with your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim."

16 "Do not pray for this people, or intercede with Me for them, for I will not hear you." 17 "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?" 18 "The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the queen of heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods, provoking me to anger." 19 "Do they spite Me? Actually they spite themselves to their own shame?" Declares the LORD.

20 The LORD GOD says, "Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on both man and beast, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched." 21 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, "Go ahead. Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat!" 22 "For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands only about burnt offerings and sacrifices." 23 "I commanded them to obey My voice, and I would be their God. Then they would be My people. I told them it would be well with them if they walked in the ways which I commanded." 24 "But they did not obey Me. Instead they walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, going backward and not forward."

25 "Since your fathers came out of Egypt I have sent you all My prophets." 26 "But you did not listen to Me. You stiffened you neck, doing more evil than your fathers did." 27 "The prophets have spoken but you have not listened." 28 "It will be said, 'This is the nation that did not obey the voice of their God. Neither would they accept correction. For them truth has perished."

29 "Cut your hair and take up a lamentation on the bare heights. In His wrath the LORD has forsaken this generation." 30 "For the sons of Judah have done evil in His sight, defiling His house with the detestable things they have brought into it." 31 "They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command. Such a thing never came into My mind."

32 "Therefore, the days are coming," declares the LORD, "When it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room." 33 "The unburied bodies will be food for the birds and the beasts, and there will be no one to drive them away." 34 "Then I will cause the voice of joy to be heard no more in the cities of Judah or the streets of Jerusalem. There will be no sound of a bridegroom and his bride, for the land will become a ruin."

Jeremiah 8 - RWB Paraphrase (22 V)
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The People Deceived By False Teachers
1 "At that time," declares the LORD, "They will bring out of the graves the bones of the kings of Judah, and of the princes, and the priests and prophets, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem." 2 "They will spread them out before the sun, and the moon and the host of heaven, which they loved and worshiped. They will not be buried but will be a dung on the ground." 3 "And the remnant of this evil family that remains, wherever they are, will choose death over life."

4 "You shall say to them, 'Thus says the LORD, Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not repent?'" 5 "Why has the people of Jerusalem, continued in apostasy? They hold fast to deceit, and refuse to return."

6 "I have listened and heard them speak what is not right. And none of them repented of their wickedness." 7 "Even the stork knows her seasons, and the turtledove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration, but My people do not know The ordinance of the LORD." 8 "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? While the lying pen of the scribes makes it a lie." 9 "The wise men have been caught in their shame. Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what kind of wisdom do they have?" 10 "Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain. Prophets and priests alike practice deceit." 11 "They attend to the wounds of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace." 12 "They were not ashamed of this abomination. Therefore they shall fall. At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down," says the LORD. 13 "I will surely snatch them away. There will be no grapes on the vine or figs on the tree, and the leaf will wither. What I have given them will pass away."

14 "Why do we sit here? Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities and perish there, because the LORD our God has doomed us, giving us poisoned water to drink, for we have sinned against the LORD."

15 "We hoped for peace but no good has come. We wanted a time of healing but there was only terror." 16 "From Dan is heard the snorting of his horses. At the sound of the neighing of his stallions the whole land quakes, for they come to devour the land, its fullness, the city and its inhabitants." 17 "Behold, I am sending serpents against you, adders, for which there is no charm, and they will bite you," declares the LORD.

18 "My sorrow is beyond healing, my heart is faint within me!" 19 "Listen! The cry of the daughter of My people from a distant land. Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not within her? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, and their foreign idols?" 20 "The harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved." 21 "I am broken because of the brokenness of the daughter of my people. I mourn as dismay overcomes me." 22 "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored."

Jeremiah 9 - RWB Paraphrase (26 V)
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Jeremiah Weeps For The People
1 "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! Then I would weep night and day for the slain of my people." 2 "Oh, that I had a desert to flee to, that I might leave my people, for they are all adulterers, an assembly of the unfaithful." 3 "They bend their tongue like a bow, shooting out lies. They go from one evil to another and do not know Me," declares the LORD. 4 "Let everyone trust no one, not even his brother. They all deal craftily." 5 "Everyone deceives his neighbor and does not speak the truth. Their tongue speaks only lies, as they weary themselves committing iniquity." 6 "They dwell in deceit, and refuse to know Me," declares the LORD. 7 "So I will refine them. What else can I do?" 8 "Their tongue is a deadly arrow speaking deceit. They speak peace to their neighbor while planning to ambush him." 9 "Shall I not punish and avenge Myself on a nation for doing this?" Declares the LORD? 10 "I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the desert pastures. They are desolate and untraveled. The lowing of cattle is not heard, and the birds of the air have fled. The animals are gone." 11 "I will cause Jerusalem to be a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals. The cities of Judah will be desolate and without inhabitants." 12 "Who is wise enough to understand this? And to whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that He may declare it? Why is the land laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through?" 13 The LORD said, "Because they have forsaken My law which I gave them, and have not obeyed My voice," 14 "but have followed the stubbornness of their heart, following after the Baals just like their fathers." 15 "I will feed them with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink." 16 "I will scatter them among the nations who they and their fathers never knew. I will annihilate many of them with the sword." 17 The LORD of Hosts says, "Think about calling for the women to wail!" 18 "Let them hurry that our eyes may shed tears." 19 "For a voice of wailing is heard in Zion, lamenting the ruin of Jerusalem, because it is no more!"

20 "Now hear the word of the LORD, you women, that you may teach a dirge to all those who take part." 21 "Death has come into our palaces, and our children are no longer in the streets, nor the young men in the town squares." 22 Thus says the LORD, "The dead shall fall like dung on the open field and no one will bury them."

23 "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the mighty man of his strength. Neither should the rich man boast of his riches." 24 "But let any boasting be this, that he understands and knows the LORD, who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth. For I delight in these things, " says the LORD. 25 "Behold, the days are coming when I will punish all who are circumcised and yet are uncircumcised," 26 "Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.

Jeremiah 10 - RWB Paraphrase (25 V)
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The Lord Is The God Of Creation
1 "Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel." 2 "Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens even though the nations are terrified by them." 3 "For the customs of the peoples are worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel." 4 "They decorate it with silver and gold, and fasten it with nail and hammer so that it will not tip over." 5 "Like scarecrows in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not fear them, they can do neither harm or good."

6 There is none like You, O LORD. You are great and Your name is mighty. 7 "Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? It is Your due! For there is no one on earth like You." 8 "But they are altogether foolish in their deluding worship of their wooden idols!" 9 "Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. Then a craftsman fashions it and they dress it with violet and purple. Everything is the work of skilled men."

10 "But the LORD is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, for the nations cannot endure His indignation." 11 "Tell them that these gods, who did not make the heavens or the earth, will perish." 12 "It is the LORD who made the earth by His power, establishing it by His wisdom, and with His understanding He stretched out the heavens." 13 "By His word He causes the clouds to rise. He makes the lightning and the rain and brings the wind from His storehouses." 14 "Everyone is senseless and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is shamed by his idols. His images are a fraud, for they cannot breath." 15 "They are a worthless work and a mockery. As their punishment they will perish." 16 "The God of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance, The LORD of hosts is His name." 17 "Gather up your belongings to leave the land, you who live under siege." 18 For this is what the LORD says, "At this time I will hurl out those who live in this land. I will bring distress on them and they shall be captured."

19 "Woe to me because of my injury! My wound is incurable! Yet I said to myself, 'This is my sickness, and I must endure it.'" 20 "My tent is destroyed, and all my ropes are broken. My sons are no more. There is no one to help me set up my tent or hang my curtains." 21 "For the shepherds have become stupid because they did not seek the LORD. Because of this they have not prospered, and their flock is scattered."

22 "Listen! The report is coming of a great commotion from the land of the north! It will make the towns of Judah desolate, a haunt of jackals." 23 "I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own, it is not for man to direct his steps." 24 "Correct me with justice, O LORD, but not with Your anger, or I will become nothing." 25 "Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You and on the families that do not call Your name, for they have devoured Jacob, and consumed him, laying waste his habitation."

Jeremiah 11 - RWB Paraphrase (23 V)
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Remember The Covenant
1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah: 2 "this is My covenant with the men of Judah and Jerusalem." 3 "Thus says the LORD God of Israel. The man who does not heed this covenant is cursed." 4 "It is the same covenant I made with your fathers while they were in Egypt. I commanded them to keep it, saying that I would be their God." 5 "In order to confirm this covenant with them, I swore to give them a land flowing with milk and honey." At these words from the LORD, I said, "Amen, O LORD." 6 So the LORD told me to proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, telling them to hear the LORD's covenant and to keep it. 7 For the LORD said, "I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them out of Egypt, and even to this day I have asked them to listen to My voice." 8 "Yet they have not listen to Me, but each one has walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought to pass the things I had outlined for them if they broke My covenant with them." 9 Then the LORD said to me, "A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem." 10 "They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear My words. They have served other gods, both the house of Israel and the house of Judah." 11 "So I am bringing disaster on them which they cannot escape, even though they will cry to me for deliverance, I will not listen to them." 12 "Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but these will not save them either." 13 "For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah. The altars for burning incense to Baal in each of the streets of Jerusalem are a shameful thing." 14 "So do not pray for this people, for I will not listen when they call to Me in their distress."

15 "What right does My beloved have in My house when she has done so many vile things. Can sacrifices prevent the disaster to come? Will you have anything for which to rejoice?" 16 "The LORD called your name, seeing you as a beautifully formed green olive tree. But now He is about to burn this tree because it is worthless." 17 "Though the LORD planted you, He has pronounced evil against you because of all the evil of the houses of Israel and Judah, including their sacrifices to Baal."

18 The LORD showed me their deeds. 19 "I was like a lamb brought to the slaughter. I did not know that they had devised plots against me, saying, 'Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.'" 20 "But, O LORD of hosts, Who judges righteously, Who tries the feelings and the heart, let me see Your vengeance on them, for I have committed my cause to You."

21 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, trying to stop you from prophesying in the name of the LORD, lest they kill you." 22 "The LORD says, 'I am about to punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and daughters will starve to death.'" 23 "Not even a remnant will remain, because I will bring disaster on the men of Anathoth in the year of their punishment."

Jeremiah 12 - RWB Paraphrase (17 V)
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Jeremiah Complains To God
1 "You are righteous, O LORD, and I can plead my case to You. Why do the wicked prosper? Why are they at ease, even in their treachery?" 2 "You have planted them and they have taken root. They grow and even produce fruit. They speak of You but do not believe in You." 3 "But You know me, O LORD, and have examined my heart's attitude toward You. Drag these others off to be slaughtered in the day of carnage!"

4 "How long must the land mourn and the vegetation of the countryside wither? Those who dwell in it have been snatched away because they did not believe You could see their latter end." 5 "If you have run with those on foot and become tired, how can you compete with horses? After falling in a land at peace, how will you go through the Jordon in flood stage?" 6 "Even your brothers and others of your father's household have dealt treacherously with you. Do not believe them when they say nice things to you."

7 "I have forsaken my house and abandoned My inheritance. I have given My beloved into the hands of her enemies." 8 "My inheritance has become to Me like a roaring lion in the forest. Therefore I hate her." 9 "My inheritance has become to Me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts to devour her."

10 "Many shepherds have destroyed my pleasant vineyard, trampling My portion under foot and making it a desolate wilderness." 11 "The whole land has become desolate and in mourning before Me. No one cares."

12 "The destroyers have come on all the bare heights of the wilderness. They are the LORD's sword and there is no peace for anyone." 13 "My people have sown wheat and reaped thorns. They have strained themselves but have not profited from it. The LORD's anger is fierce, so be ashamed of your harvest."

14 Thus says the LORD concerning the wicked neighbors who strike at the inheritance of Israel."Behold, I will uproot Judah from the land." 15 "But after I have uprooted them, I will have compassion on them and bring each one back to his land." 16 "And if they will really learn the ways of My people, swearing by My name, even as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the midst of My people." 17 "But if they will not listen, then I will uproot and destroy that nation," declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 13 - RWB Paraphrase (27 V)
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The People Threatened With Captivity
1 The LORD told me to buy a linen waistband wear it without first putting it in water. 2 So I bought the waistband put it on, as the LORD had said. 3 Then the word of the LORD came a second time, saying, 4 "Go to the Euphrates wearing the waistband find a crevice in the rock in which to hide it." 5 So I went and did as the LORD has commanded.

6 Many days later the LORD told me to go back to where I had hidden the waistband. 7 So I went to the place at the Euphrates where I had hidden the waistband took it out of the crevice. It was ruined and of no value. 8 The LORD said to me, 9 "just so I will destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem." 10 "This wicked people have refused to listen to me. They have stubbornly followed other gods. Let them become totally worthless like this waistband." 11 "For just as the waistband clings to a man's waist, so I have made the whole household of Israel for the purpose of clinging to Me, that they might be a people renown for praising Me. But they did not listen."

12 "Therefore tell them that the LORD God of Israel says that every jug is to be filled with wine. They will reply that they already know this." 13 Then say to them, "Thus says the LORD, behold I am about to fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land, including the kings who sit on David's throne as well as the priests!" 14 "I will dash the fathers and sons together and show no compassion to keep them from being destroyed." 15 "Do not be haughty. Listen, for the LORD had spoken." 16 "Give glory to the LORD your God, before He brings darkness and causes your feet to stumble upon the dark mountains. While you hope for light He will cause deep darkness and death."

17 "If you will not listen, My soul will secretly sob for your pride. I will weep in bitterness when the LORD's flock has been taken captive."

18 "Tell the king and the queen mother to take a lowly seat for the crown has been removed from your head." 19 "The cities of the Negev have been locked up and no one can open them. All of Judah has been carried into exile."

20 "Lift up you eyes and see those coming from the north. Where is the flock of beautiful sheep that was given to you?" 21 "What will you say when He appoints your former companions to be in charge of you? Will your pain not be like a woman in childbirth?"

22 "If you ask yourself why these things have happened, it is because the magnitude of your iniquities that your skirts have been ripped off and your body mistreated." 23 "Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skip or a leopard remove his spots? Neither can you do good who have been used to doing evil."

24 "So I will scatter you like straw that drifts before a desert wind." 25 "Because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood, I have measured out this punishment for you, " says the LORD. 26 "I Myself stripped you of your skirts that your shame may be seen by all." 27 "I have seen your adulteries, your craving for the lewdness of your prostitution on the hills and in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean."

Jeremiah 14 - RWB Paraphrase (22 V)
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God Pronounces Doom On Jerusalem
1 Here is what the LORD said to Jeremiah about the drought. 2 "As the people of Judah sit on the ground and mourn, their cry has ascended to heaven." 3 "Their nobles have sent their servants out to find water but they return with empty vessels and they cover their heads in shame." 4 "Because there is no rain, the ground has cracked and the farmers cover their heads in shame." 5 "Even the doe in the field gives birth only to abandon her young, for there is no grass." 6 "The wild donkeys stand on the heights panting for air like jackals because they see no vegetation." 7 "Our iniquities testify against us, O LORD. Act in our behalf for Your name's sake." 8 "You are the hope of Israel and You are its Savior in time of distress. Why are You like a stranger who stops in the land for just one night?" 9 "Why are You like a mighty man who cannot save? We are called by Your name. Do not forsake us!" 10 The LORD says to this people, "You have loved to wander. Therefore the LORD does not accept you. He is calling you to account for your sins."

11 So the LORD told me to not pray for this people. 12 He said, "When they fast I will not listen. When they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. I will use the sword, famine and pestilence to make an end of them." 13 Then I said, "Ah, LORD God, see how the prophets tell them that this will not happen to them, but that they will have lasting peace in this place." 14 Then the LORD said to me, "The prophets are using My name to prophesy falsehood. I have not sent them. Their visions are false and filled with deception and deceit." 15 Therefore, I say to them, "These false prophets will meet their end!" 16 "And those listening to them shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem to be destroyed by famine and sword. No one will be around to bury them. Entire families will perish, for on the Children of Israel I am pouring upon them their own wickedness." 17 "You will say to them, 'I will weep day and night, for the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a mighty blow resulting in an infected wound.'" 18 "Those slain by the sword are everywhere, in the country as well as the city. This includes prophet and priest."

19 "Have you completely rejected Judah. Have You loathed Zion? Why have You struck us down beyond healing? We waited for peace but nothing good came. We have terror in place of healing."

20 "We know our wickedness, O LORD. We and our fathers have sinned against You." 21 "For Your own name's sake do not despise us or disgrace the throne of Your glory. Remember Your covenant with us." 22 "No idol of any nation can give us rain. Even the heavens do not grant us showers. It is You, O LORD, Who does this for us. You are our only hope."

Jeremiah 15 - RWB Paraphrase (21 V)
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Jerusalem Is Persecuted
1 Then the LORD said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me and plead for them, My heart would not be with this people. Send them from My presence." 2 "When they ask you where to turn, tell them the LORD says, 'Those destined for death, to death and those destined to the sword, to the sword. Still others are destined for famine and captivity.'." 3 "I will appoint four kinds of doom for them. The sword to slay, the dogs to tear at them, the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field to devour and destroy." 4 "I will make them an object of horror among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, king of Judah, the son of Hezekiah."

5 "Who will have pity on Jerusalem, or mourn for her. Who will have any concern for her?" 6 "You have forsaken Me and you keep going backward. So I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you. I am tired of relenting."

7 "I will winnow them with a winnowing fork and bereave them of their children, because they did not repent of their ways." 8 "They will have more widows than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer against them at midday." 9 "She who bore seven sons will have labored breathing. Her sun will have set while it is yet day."

10 "Woe is me, for I am a man of contention to all the land. Though I have not lent or borrowed money, everyone curses me." 11 The LORD said, "Surely I will set you free for good reasons. I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in time of distress and disaster."

12 "Can anyone smash iron or bronze from the north?" 13 "Because of all your sins I will give away your wealth for nothing." 14 "I will cause your enemies to bring you into a land you do not know. My anger is kindled against you."

15 "You know me, O LORD. Take vengeance on those who persecute me. Do not take me away. It is for Your sake that I endure reproach." 16 "I found Your words. I ate them, and they became my delight. For I have been called by Your name, O LORD of Hosts." 17 "I did not exult or sit with merrymakers. Your hand was upon me and I sat alone, for You filled me with indignation." 18 "Why do I always have pain and incurable wounds? Will You be like a stream of water that does not always run?"

19 Therefore, the LORD says, "If you will return, then I will restore you and you will stand before Me. If you separate the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman. They may turn to you, but you must not turn to them." 20 "Then I will make you a fortified wall of bronze to this people. If they fight against you, they will not prevail, for I will deliver you, " says the LORD. 21 "I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked and redeem you from those who are violent."

Jeremiah 16 - RWB Paraphrase (21 V)
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A Prophecy Of Disaster
1 The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, 2 "You shall not take a wife for yourself or have sons or daughters in this place." 3 "For the LORD says, concerning the children born in this place, and their parents who beget them," 4 "they will die of deadly diseases and they will not be lamented or buried. They shall be as dung on the ground. The sword and famine shall be their end, and their carcasses will be food for the birds and the beasts." 5 For the LORD says, "Do not lament with them or console them, for I have withdrawn My peace, My loving kindness and compassion, from this people." 6 "Men both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or lamented." 7 "No one will break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for their dead, whether father or mother." 8 "Neither shall you go to a feast to eat and drink with them." 9 For thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold, I am about to eliminate the voice of gladness, and the voice of the bridegroom and his bride from this place. And it will be in your time." 10 "When you tell this people everything I have said, they will ask why the LORD has declared this great calamity against them, and what sin they have committed against God?" 11 "Then you shall say to them, 'It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,' says the LORD, 'And have followed other gods, serving and bowing down to them. But Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.'." 12 "And you have done even more evil than your fathers. You each walk according to the stubbornness of your own evil heart, and have not listened to Me." 13 "So I will cast you out of this land to a land you and your fathers have not known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor."

14 "The days are coming when it will no longer be said, 'As the LORD lives, who brought Israel out of Egypt.'" 15 "Instead it will be, 'As the LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel back from the land of the north and all the countries where He had banished them.' For I will eventually restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers." 16 "Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen who will fish for you, " declares the lord."and I will send many hunters to hunt for you in the mountains and on the clefts of the rocks." 17 "I have not hidden My face from all your ways. None of your iniquity is concealed from My eyes." 18 "I will doubly repay the iniquity of those who have polluted My land. They have filled My inheritance with their detestable idols."

19 "O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of distress. To You the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility and things without profit. 20 "Shall a man make gods for himself, even though they are not gods?" 21 "So I will make them understand My power and might. They shall know that My name is the LORD."

Jeremiah 17 - RWB Paraphrase (27 V)
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Jeremiah Warns The People
1 "The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus having a diamond point, and engraved upon the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars." 2 "As they remember their children, so they remember their altars and their Asherim by the green trees on high hills." 3 "My mountain in the land that was your wealth, along with all your treasures, I will give away as plunder, together with your high places, because of your sin throughout your country." 4 "You will let go of your inheritance which I gave you, and I will make you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know, for My anger burns against you."

5 The LORD says, "Cursed is the man who trusts in man making flesh his strength, and whose heart turns from the LORD." 6 "Like a bush in the desert he will not see prosperity. He will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant."

7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD," 8 "for he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream. It will not fear when the heat comes. Its leaves will be green, and will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit."

9 "The heart is more deceitful than anything else and is desperately wicked. Who can understand it?" 10 "I, the LORD, search the heart and test the mind. I give to each man according to his deeds." 11 "As a partridge that hatches eggs it has not yet laid, so is he who makes a fortune by unjust means. In the midst of his days his fortune will forsake him, and in the end he will be a fool."

12 "The glorious throne on high from the beginning is our sanctuary." 13 "O LORD, you are the hope of Israel. All who forsake You, turning away from You, will be written down, because you have forsaken the LORD." 14 "Heal me, O LORD. Save me, for You are my praise."

15 "Look, they say to me, "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now! 16 "As for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd after You, nor have I longed for the day of woe. You Yourself know what I said in Your presence."

17 "Do not be a terror to me, you are my refuge in the day of disaster." 18 "Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Bring disaster on them. Crush them with a twofold destruction!"

19 The LORD said to me, "Go and stand in the public gate, through which the kings of Judah come and go, as well in all the gates of Jerusalem." 20 Say to them, "Listen to the word of the LORD, kings of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem who come in through these gates." 21 Thus says the LORD, "Take heed for yourselves, and do not carry any load on the Sabbath day or bring anything in through the gates of Jerusalem on that day." 22 "You shall not bring a load out of your houses on the Sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers."

23 "They did not listen or incline their ears, but stiffened their necks so as not to listen or take correction."

24 "However, if you listen attentively to Me, " declares the LORD, "And bring no load in through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath holy by doing no work on it," 25 "then there will come in through the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David. They will ride in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, as well as the men of Judah and Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever." 26 "People will come from all over bringing to the house of the LORD burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings, incense, and thanksgiving sacrifices." 27 "But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched."

Jeremiah 18 - RWB Paraphrase (23 V)
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The People Try To Silence Jeremiah
1 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 2 "Go down to the potter's house. When you get there I will tell you what to say." 3 So I went to the potter's house and found him making something on his potter's wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was spoiled as he formed it. So he made a different vessel from the same lump of clay. 5 Then the LORD said to me, 6 "can I not do with Israel as the potter did? Israel is like the clay in the potter's hand." 7 "At one time I might speak of a nation that I planned to uproot and destroy." 8 "If that nation turns from it evil ways I will relent from the calamity I had planned for it." 9 "Or, I might plan to build up a nation." 10 "If it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will reconsider the good I had planned for it." 11 "So go and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, 'The LORD says that He is fashioning calamity against you. Each of you must turn back from his evil ways and reform his evil ways.'." 12 "But they will say, 'It is hopeless and we will continue with own plans.' Each one will act according to the stubbornness of his own heart."

13 "Ask among the nations. Who ever heard the likes of this? The virgin Israel is acting in an appalling way." 14 "Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rocky peaks? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away?"

15 "But My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless gods and they stumbled away from the ancient paths." 16 "They make their land desolate. Those passing by are astonished at this." 17 "Like the east wind, I will scatter them before the enemy. I will turn My back on them in their time of calamity."

18 Then the people got together to devise plans against Jeremiah. They said, "Surely the law concerning the priest and counsel will not be ignored. Let us strike out at him with our words and pay no attention to his words."

19 "Give heed to me as you listen to what my opponents are saying!" 20 "Should good be repaid with evil? They have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good on their behalf, so as to turn away Your wrath from them." 21 "Therefore, give their children over to famine and deliver them up to the power of the sword, and let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men be smitten to death, and their young men struck down in battle." 22 "May an outcry be heard from their houses, when You suddenly bring raiders upon them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and hidden snares for my feet." 23 "But you know, O LORD, of all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You. Deal with them according to Your anger."

Jeremiah 19 - RWB Paraphrase (15 V)
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God Will Shatter Jerusalem
1 The LORD told me to buy a potter's earthenware jar and to take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, 2 to the valley of the son of Hinnom which is by the entry of the east gate, and there proclaim the words He would give to me. 3 He told me to say, "Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of Hosts, 'Behold I am about to bring a calamity upon this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle.'" 4 "Because they have forsaken Me and have burned sacrifices to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent," 5 "and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded, or ever enter My mind." 6 "Behold, the days are coming," declares the LORD, "When this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Benhinnom, but rather the valley of slaughter." 7 "I will make the counsel of Judah void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies. And I will give their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth." 8 "This city will be a desolation. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished because of all its disasters." 9 "I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and distress caused by their enemies who seek their lives."

10 "You are to break the jar as they watch." 11 "Say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter's vessel, which cannot be repaired, and they shall be buried in Topheth until there be no place left to bury them." 12 "This is what I will do this place," says the LORD. 13 "The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like Topheth, because of all the houses on whose rooftops they burned sacrifices to the heavenly host and poured out drink offerings to other gods." 14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the LORD's house and said to all the people, 15 "thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns, the calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.'"

Jeremiah 20 - RWB Paraphrase (18 V)
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Jeremiah Is Put In Stocks
1 Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. 2 He had Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks at the upper Benjamin Gate, which was by the house of the LORD. 3 The next day he released Jeremiah from the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, "Pashhur is not the name the LORD has called you, but rather Magormissabib." 4 "For thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I am going to make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. And while you watch, they will be killed by their enemies. I will give all of Judah to the king of Babylon who will slay some with the sword and carry some of them away as exiles to Babylon." 5 "I will give over the wealth of this city, its produce and all its costly things, even the treasures of the kings of Judah, into the hand of their enemies, and they will take them away to Babylon." 6 "And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon, and die and be buried there with all your friends to whom you have falsely prophesied.'"

7 "O LORD, You induced me, and I was persuaded, You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I am in derision daily, Everyone mocks me." 8 "Each time I speak, I cry aloud, proclaiming violence and destruction. For me the word of the LORD has resulted in reproach and derision all day long." 9 But if I say, "I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name," then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. 10 "I hear many whispering, terror on every side! Let's report him! All my friends are waiting for me to make a slip, saying, 'Perhaps he will be deceived, then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.'" 11 But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior, so my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. They will be thoroughly disgraced, and their dishonor will never be forgotten. 12 "O LORD of hosts, You test the righteous, and see the mind and heart. Let me witness Your vengeance on them, for to You I have set forth my cause." 13 "Sing to the LORD and give Him praise! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked."

14 "Cursed be the day when I was born. Do not let the day be blessed when my mother bore me!" 15 "Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, 'A baby boy has been born to you!' This news made him very happy." 16 "Let that man be like the cities the LORD, completely over thrown. Let him hear an outcry in the morning and a shout of alarm at noon." 17 "He did not kill me before my birth. O that my mother had been my grave and I had not been delivered." 18 "Why did I ever come out of the womb to look on trouble and sorrow, and to spend my days in shame."

Jeremiah 21 - RWB Paraphrase (14 V)
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God Refuses The King's Request
1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur the son of Malchijah to him along with Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, asking the following, 2 "please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all His wonderful acts, so that the enemy will withdraw from us."

3 Jeremiah said to them, "Tell Zedekiah," 4 "thus says the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am about to turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands, with which you are warring against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall. I will gather them into the center of this city." 5 "I will war against you Myself, with a mighty arm, in anger, wrath and great indignation." 6 "I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They will die of a great pestilence." 7 "Afterwards, " declares the LORD, "I will give over Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people who survive the pestilence, the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He will have no pity as he strikes down everyone." 8 "You shall tell the people, the LORD says, 'Behold, I have set before you the way of life and death." 9 "He who dwells in this city will die by the sword, famine and pestilence. But he who goes out and submits to the Chaldeans who are besieging you, will save his life."

10 "I have set My face against this city for harm and not for good, " declares the LORD."It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire." 11 "Tell the household of the king what the LORD says," 12 "o house of David, administer justice every morning. Deliver the person who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor, that My wrath may not go forth like fire and not be extinguished, because of all your evil deeds."

13 "Behold I am against those who say, 'Who will come against us or enter our dwellings?'" 14 "I will punish you according to your deeds, " declares the LORD."I will kindle a fire in you and devour you along with everything you have."

Jeremiah 22 - RWB Paraphrase (30 V)
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God Declares Judgment On Evil Kings
1 The LORD told Jeremiah to go and speak these words to the king of Judah, 2 "hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah who sits on David's throne. These words are also for your servants and the people who enter these gates." 3 "The LORD says, 'You are to do justice and righteousness. You are to deliver the oppressed from their oppressor. And you are not to mistreat the stranger, the orphan or the widow. And do not shed innocent blood.'." 4 "If your men follow this course of action you will enter these gates and sit on David's throne, and you and your people will ride in your chariots." 5 "But if you will not obey these words, the LORD declares that this house will become desolate." 6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah, "You are like Gilead to Me, like the summit of Lebanon. But you may be sure that I will make you like a wilderness, like uninhabited cities." 7 "I will send destroyers against you, each with his weapons. They will cut your choicest cedars for their fires." 8 "Many nations will pass this city and wonder why the LORD has done this to this great city." 9 "Then they will be told it is because this people forsook their covenant with the LORD their God by bowing down to other gods and serving them."

10 "Do not weep for those who die. Rather weep for the ones who are taken away to never return to see his native land." 11 For thus says the LORD in regard to Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in the place of Josiah his father, who went forth from this place, "He will never return." 12 "He will die in the place where he is held captive." 13 "Woe to him who builds his house apart from righteousness and his upper rooms without justice, who uses his neighbor's services without paying him wages," 14 saying, "I will build myself a spacious house with windows and cedar paneling, and I will paint it bright red." 15 "Is your reason for becoming king to compete in cedar? Did not your father do well while he did justice and righteousness?" 16 "He plead for the afflicted and the needy. Is this not what it means to know Me?" Declares the LORD.

17 "But your desire is only for your dishonest gain, shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and extortion." 18 Therefore, this is what the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah."No one will lamented him or think of his splendor." 19 "He will be given a donkey's burial, dragged out and thrown beyond the gates of Jerusalem." 20 "Cry out in Lebanon, and lift up your voice in Bashan. Cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are crushed." 21 "I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you would not listen. From your youth you have not obeyed Me." 22 "The wind will sweep away all your shepherds. Your lovers will go into captivity. You will surely be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness." 23 "You who dwell in Lebanon among the cedars will groan with pain, like a woman in childbirth!" 24 "As surely as I live, " declares the LORD, "Even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off." 25 "And I will give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life, those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans." 26 "I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where neither of you were born, and there you both will die." 27 "You will not return to the land of your desire."

28 "Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, and cast into a land they do not know?"

29 "O land, hear the word of the LORD!" 30 This is what the LORD says, "Mark this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime. None of his offspring will prosper, and none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah."

Jeremiah 23 - RWB Paraphrase (40 V)
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A Righteous King Will Come
1 "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture," declares the LORD. 2 The LORD says, "Since you have scattered My flock and not attended to them, I am about to attend to you for your evil deeds." 3 "Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture where they will be fruitful and multiply." 4 "I will raise up shepherds to tend them, and they will no longer be afraid, or go missing," says the LORD. 5 "The days are coming when I will raise up a Righteous branch of David. He will reign as king and act wisely doing justice and righteousness in the land." 6 "Judah will be saved in His days, and Israel will dwell securely. His name will be, 'The LORD our Righteousness.'." 7 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "When it will no longer be said, 'As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,'" 8 "But instead, 'As the LORD lives, who brought back the descendants of the household of Israel from the land to the north and from all the countries where I had driven them.' Then they will once more live on their own soil."

9 "As for the prophets, My heart is broken within me. All my bones tremble. I have become like a drunken man, like a man overcome with wine, because of the LORD and because of His holy words." 10 "For the land is full of adulterers, and mourns under the curse. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up and power is used unjustly." 11 "Both prophet and priest are polluted. Even in My house I have found their wickedness," declares the LORD. 12 "Therefore their path will become slippery. They will be banished to darkness and where they will fall. I will bring disaster on them in the year of their punishment," declares the LORD.

13 "Besides this, among the prophets of Samaria I saw an offensive thing. They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray." 14 "And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a terrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in falsehood. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one has turned back from his wickedness. All of them have become to Me like Sodom and Gomorrah."

15 "Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets. 'Behold, I am going to feed them wormwood and make them drink poisonous water, for the prophets of Jerusalem have polluted all the land.'" 16 The LORD of hosts says, "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are leading you into futility. They speak a vision of their own making, and not from the LORD." 17 "They keep saying to those who despise Me, 'The LORD says, you will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, 'No harm will come to you.'." 18 "But who has stood in the council of the LORD, that he should see and hear His word? Who has listened to His word and given heed?" 19 "Behold, the storm of the LORD has gone forth in wrath, in a whirling tempest, It will swirl down on the head of the wicked." 20 "The anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has performed the purposes of His heart. In the last days you will clearly understand it." 21 "I did not send these prophets as they have claimed." 22 "Had they stood in My council, they would have announced My words to My people, turning them back from their evil ways."

23 "Am I a God who is close by?" 24 "Can a man hide where I cannot see him? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth with My presence?" 25 "I have heard the false prophets claiming to have dreams from Me." 26 "How long will you listen to these false prophets who speak falsely? They are deceived from their very hearts." 27 "They are trying to make My people forget My name, just as their fathers forgot Me and followed Baal." 28 "The prophets claiming to have a dream from Me may relate that dream. But it must agree with My word, for My word is truth. The straw needs to be separated from the grain." 29 "Is not My word like fire?" Declares the LORD, "Like a hammer which shatters a rock?" 30 "Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets who steal My words from each other," 31 "using their tongues to suggest what I have said." 32 "I am against those who prophesy false dreams, telling the people falsehoods, though I have not sent any word by them. Their words are not the slightest benefit to the people." 33 "When this people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, 'What has the LORD said?' Say to them, 'The LORD says, I will forsake you.'" 34 "I will punish the man and his household, prophet or priest, who claims to have a oracle from the LORD." 35 "Thus shall each of you say to his neighbor and brother, 'What has the LORD spoken?'" 36 "For you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man's own word will become the oracle. You have perverted the words of our God, the LORD of hosts." 37 "Say to that prophet, 'What has the LORD said to you?'" 38 "For I have also told you, "You shall not say, 'I have the oracle of the LORD!'. 39 "For I will surely forget you and cast you away from My presence, along with the city which I gave you and your fathers." 40 "I will put an everlasting reproach and humiliation on you which shall not be forgotten."

Jeremiah 24 - RWB Paraphrase (10 V)
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Jeremiah's Vision Of The Figs
1 After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, along with the officials of Judah, along with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs set before the temple of the LORD! 2 One basket had very good figs, like those that are first ripe. The other basket had bad figs that could not be eaten. 3 The LORD said, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I said, "Figs, both good and bad." 4 Then the LORD said, 5 "I will think of the good captives as good figs, whom I have sent out of this place to the Chaldeans." 6 "My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down, I will plant them and not uproot them." 7 "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart." 8 "But like the rotten figs that cannot be eaten, I will abandon Zedekiah king of Judah as well as his officials, along with the few who remain in the land or live in Egypt." 9 "I will make them disgusting to all the kingdoms of the earth, an object of ridicule wherever I banish them." 10 "I will send sword, famine and pestilence on them and destroy them from the land which I gave to their forefathers."

Jeremiah 25 - RWB Paraphrase (38 V)
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Jeremiah Warns Of The Coming Calamity From The Lord
1 In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people. 2 He relayed this word to all the people of Judah including those in Jerusalem. 3 "The LORD has come to me from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, until this day, these twenty three years. And I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened." 4 "The LORD has sent all His prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened." 5 He has said, "Turn from your evil ways, that you may dwell on the land which the LORD has given you and your forefathers forever." 6 "Do not serve and worship other gods, and provoke Me to anger, lest I do you harm." 7 "But you have not listened to Me." 8 "Therefore, thus says the LORD or hosts, 'Because you have not obeyed My words," 9 "I will send Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to take you away. As My servant he will utterly destroy this land." 10 "I will take away the joy from this land, even the voice of the bridegroom and the bride." 11 "This entire land will be desolate and all the nations around will serve the king of Babylon seventy years." 12 "When the seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and make it an everlasting desolation.'"

13 "I will keep My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations." 14 "I will recompense them according to their deeds." 15 For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink of it." 16 "When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

17 So I took the cup from the LORD's hand made all the nations to whom the LORD sent me drink of it. 18 "This included Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror and a curse, as it is this day," 19 "Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes and all his people," 20 "and all the foreign people, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines, including Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod," 21 "Edom, Moab and the sons of Ammon," 22 "and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon and the kings of the coastlands which are beyond the sea," 23 "Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners," 24 "and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert," 25 "and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam and all the kings of Media," 26 "and all the kings of the north, near and far, all the kingdoms of the earth. And the king of Sheshach shall drink after them." 27 "Say to them, thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Drink until you are drunk, then vomit and fall down, for you will rise no more because of the sword which I am sending.'." 28 "If they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink from it, tell them that the LORD says they must surely drink it!" 29 "For I am beginning a calamity in this city which shall be recognized as coming from Me. I am bringing the sword against the entire earth," declares the LORD of Hosts. 30 "Therefore, prophecy against them everything I have told you, letting them know that it is the LORD's voice roaring from on high. This is against His own fold as well as all the inhabitants of the earth." 31 "The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth, for the LORD will bring charges against the nations. He will bring judgment on all mankind and put the wicked to the sword." 32 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, evil is going forth to all nations, even the remotest parts of the earth." 33 "Those slain by the LORD on that day will be from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be lamented, gathered or buried, they will be like dung on the face of the ground." 34 "Wail, you shepherds, cry, and wallow in ashes, you masters of the flock, for the days of your slaughter and your dispersions have come, and you will fall like a choice vessel." 35 "The shepherds will have nowhere to flee, and the leaders of the flock no place to escape." 36 "Hear their wailing, for the LORD is destroying their pasture." 37 "The peaceful folds are silent because of His fierce anger." 38 "Like a lion He will leave his lair, and their land will become desolate because of the sword of the oppressor and because of the LORD's fierce anger."

Jeremiah 26 - RWB Paraphrase (24 V)
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Jeremiah Narrowly Escapes Death
1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 2 "Stand in the court of the LORD's house, and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship. Tell them all the words that I have commanded you to speak. Leave nothing out!" 3 "Maybe they will listen and turn from their evil ways so that I may repent of the calamity I have planned for them." 4 "Tell them that if they do not listen to the LORD, and keep His law which He has set before them," 5 "and if they will not listen to His prophets," 6 "then He will make this house like the house of Shiloh, and this city a curse to all the nations of the earth!"

7 The priests, the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah's words while he stood in the house of the LORD. 8 When he had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to say, the priests, prophets and all the people seized him, saying, "You must die!" 9 "Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying this about the house of the LORD and the inhabitants of this city?" All the people were gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

10 The officials of Judah came up from the king's gate when they heard these things and sat at the entrance of the New Gate of the LORD's house. 11 The priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, "This man must die! For he has prophesied against this city."

12 Then Jeremiah spoke to the officials and all the people, saying, "The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and this city. I have spoken the words He told me to speak." 13 "Now therefore amend your ways and obey the voice of the LORD your God, and He will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you." 14 "But as for me, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems right to you." 15 "But know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and this city. Truly, the LORD has sent me to say what I have said." 16 So the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, "This man shall not die, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD."

17 Then some of the elders of the land stood up and said to the people, 18 "Micah of Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus the LORD of hosts has said, 'Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become a ruins, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.'" 19 "Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? Did they not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But we are committing a great evil against ourselves." 20 "And there was also a man who prophesied in the name of the LORD, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriathjearim, and he prophesied against this city and against this land with words similar to the words spoken by Jeremiah." 21 "When King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials had heard his words, the king sought to put him to death, but Uriah heard of it, and fled to Egypt." 22 "King Jehoiakim sent Elnathan the son of Achbor and certain others to Egypt." 23 "They brought Uriah from Egypt and led him to King Jehoiakim, who slew him with a sword and cast his dead body into the burial place of the common people."

24 And the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to be put to death.

Jeremiah 27 - RWB Paraphrase (22 V)
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Jeremiah Urges Submission To Babylon
1 In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, the LORD spoke to Jeremiah, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD, make bonds and yokes and put them on your neck." 3 "Send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, to the king of the sons of Ammon, to the kings of Tyre and Sidon, using their own messengers who came to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah." 4 "Send them to their masters, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel,'" 5 "By My great power I have made everything on the earth including man and beast. I will give them to the one who is pleasing in My sight." 6 "Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He is My servant. I have also given him the wild animals to serve him." 7 "All the nations shall serve him, his son and his grandson, until his own time comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their servant." 8 "Any nation that does not submit to Nebuchadnezzar, I will punish with the sword, famine and pestilence, until I have destroyed it by his hand." 9 "Do not listen to your prophets, diviners, dreamers, soothsayers or sorcerers, who give you a different message." 10 "They prophesy lies so that you will be removed far from your land. I will drive you out and you will perish." 11 "But the nation which submits to the yoke of the king of Babylon to serve him, I will let remain in his land, to till it and dwell in it."

12 I spoke these words to Zedekiah king of Judah, telling him to submit to Babylon that he and his people might live! 13 I said, "Why will you and your people die by the sword, famine and pestilence? The LORD has decreed such for those who do not submit to Babylon." 14 "Do not listen to your prophets who tell you that you will not have to serve the king of Babylon. They are lying when they say this." 15 "The LORD says that He has not sent them. They prophesy falsely and if you listen to them He will drive you out and you and your prophets will perish."

16 Then I spoke to the priests and to all the people saying, "Thus says the LORD. Do not listen to the prophets who are telling you that the vessels of the LORD's house will shortly be brought back from Babylon. This is a lie." 17 "Be willing to serve the king of Babylon so that you may live! Why should this city become a ruin?" 18 "If they are prophets, and if the word of the LORD is with them, let them now entreat the LORD of hosts that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem may not be taken to Babylon." 19 "For the LORD of Hosts says concerning the pillars, the sea, the stands and the rest of those things left in this city," 20 "which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon already took when he carried Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem." 21 "So the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of the LORD and in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem," 22 "they will be carried to Babylon and will remain there until the day I visit them," declares the LORD."Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place."

Jeremiah 28 - RWB Paraphrase (17 V)
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Jeremiah Rebukes A False Prophet
1 In the same year at the beginning of Zedekiah's reign as king over Judah, in the fourth year and the sixth month, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD in the hearing of the priests and all the people, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, 'I have broken the yoke of Babylon.'" 3 "Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon carried to Babylon." 4 "I am going to bring back Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the all the exiles of Judah who were taken to Babylon, for I am breaking the yoke of Babylon."

5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah with the priests and all the people listening as they stood in the house of the LORD. 6 Jeremiah said, "Amen! May the LORD do this and confirm your words to bring back to this place the vessels of the LORD's house along with the exiles from Babylon." 7 "But hear now the words which I will speak in your hearing and the hearing of all the people!" 8 "The prophets from ancient times prophesied against many kingdoms concerning war, calamity and pestilence." 9 "When a prophet's words came to pass, then that prophet was known as one whom the LORD had truly sent."

10 Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. 11 Speaking in the presence of all the people, Hananiah said, "Thus says the LORD, 'Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations within two years.'" Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

12 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off Jeremiah's neck, saying, 13 "Go and speak to Hananiah. Tell him, 'Thus says the LORD, You have broken the yoke of wood, but yokes of iron will replace it.'" 14 "For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they will serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And I have also given him the beasts of the field.'."

15 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, "Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you. You have made this people trust in a lie." 16 "Therefore the LORD says, 'Behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This year you are going to die, because you have counseled rebellion against the LORD.'." 17 So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year in the seventh month.

Jeremiah 29 - RWB Paraphrase (32 V)
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Jeremiah Warns Against False Prophets
1 Jeremiah sent a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, the priests and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Here is what he wrote. 2 This letter was written after king Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the princes of Judah, the craftsmen and the smiths had been taken from Jerusalem. 3 The letter was carried by Elasah and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. It said, 4 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon," 5 "build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce." 6 "Take wives and become fathers of sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, and multiply there so that your numbers do not decrease." 7 "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its peace you shall have peace."

8 "For this is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says, 'Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams they have.'." 9 "For they prophesy falsely in My name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD. 10 "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place." 11 "For I know the thoughts that I have for you, " says the LORD, "Thoughts of peace, and not for evil, to give you a future and hope." 12 "Then you will call upon Me and pray to Me, and I will listen to you." 13 "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." 14 "I will be found by you, " declares the LORD, "And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations where I have driven you, to bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile."

15 "Because you have said, 'The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,'." 16 "Here is what the LORD says concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, and did not go with you into exile," 17 "behold, I am sending upon them the sword, famine and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs that are split open and cannot be eaten." 18 "I will make them a curse in the eyes of all the kingdoms of the earth, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them," 19 "because they have not listened to My words, which I sent again and again by My servants the prophets." 20 "Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles, whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon." 21 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying to you falsely in My name. 'Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will slay them before your eyes.'." 22 "Because of them a curse will be used by all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon, saying, 'May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,'." 23 "Because they have acted foolishly in Israel, committing adultery with their neighbors' wives and speaking false words in My name, words I did not command them to say. I am He who knows and has witnessed these things," declares the LORD. 24 To Shemaiah the Nehelamite say, 25 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the other priests, saying,'." 26 "The LORD has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be the overseer in the house of the LORD over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar," 27 "why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who prophesies to you?" 28 "For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, 'The exiles will be there a long time. Build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat its produce."

29 Zephaniah the priest read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet. 30 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 31 "Send this word to the exiles, 'Thus says the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, "Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, although I did not send him, and he has made you trust in a lie, 32 therefore thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. Neither he or any of his family will live among this people. He will not see the good that I am about to do for My people, for he has preached rebellion against the LORD."

Jeremiah 30 - RWB Paraphrase (24 V)
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Restoration Is Promised
1 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Write all the words I have spoken in a book.'" 3 "Behold the days are coming when I will restore My people Israel and Judah to the land I gave to their forefathers." 4 Here are the LORD's words concerning His people of Israel and Judah: 5 "I have heard those who fear and have no peace." 6 "A man cannot give birth, can he? Yet I have seen men with their hands on their loins, like a woman giving birth. Why are their faces so pale?" 7 "It is a day like the time of Jacob's distress, but they will be saved from it." 8 "In that day when I break the yoke from their neck and strip away their bonds, they will no longer be slaves to strangers." 9 "Instead they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king whom I will raise up for them." 10 "Fear not, O Jacob My servant, " declares the LORD, "Do not be dismayed, O Israel, for I will save you wherever you are in the land of your captivity. Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid." 11 "I am with you and will save you, " declares the LORD."Though I should completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice, for I must not let you go entirely unpunished." 12 For thus says the LORD, "Your wound cannot be cured. Your injury is serious." 13 "There is no one to plead your case, or any remedy for your wound. No healing is available for you."

14 "You are forgotten by your lovers. They do not look for you, for I have given you a deadly wound because you sins are so great." 15 "Why cry about your injury, as though there were a cure. There is no cure because your iniquity is great and your sins are numerous. I am the one who has done this to you." 16 "But those who devour you will themselves be devoured. Everyone of them will go into captivity. All who have plundered you will be plundered." 17 "I will restore you to health, " declares the LORD."I will do this because they have called you an outcast, thinking no one cares for Zion." 18 The LORD says, "I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have compassion on their dwelling place. His city will be rebuilt on its ruins, and the palace will stand in its rightful place." 19 "The voice of thanksgiving will once again come from that place. The honor I give to them will be significant." 20 "Their children will be as formerly, and their congregation shall be established before Me. At that time I will punish all their oppressors." 21 "Their leader shall be one of their own. I will bring him near Me, for who would dare to risk his life to approach Me?" Declares the LORD. 22 "You shall be My people, and I will be your God."

23 "Behold, the storm of the LORD will burst out in wrath, a driving wind swirling down on the heads of the wicked." 24 "His fierce anger will not turn back until He has accomplished His purpose. Eventually you will understand this."

Jeremiah 31 - RWB Paraphrase (40 V)
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God Promises To Rebuild The Nation
1 The LORD declares, "At that time I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people." 2 "The people who survive the sword will find grace in the wilderness. I will come to them and give them rest."

3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I have drawn you with lovingkindness." 4 "I will build you up again, O Virgin Israel. You will once more take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the merrymakers." 5 "You will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria and you will enjoy its fruit."

6 "The day will come when watchmen will cry out on the hills of Ephraim, saying, 'Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.'." 7 The LORD says, "Sing with joy for Jacob, the chief of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, 'O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.'."

8 "Behold, I am bringing them from the north, and I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth. The blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child will be among them. A great company will return here." 9 "They will come with weeping and by their supplication I will lead them. I will make them to walk by streams of water on a path which will not cause them to stumble. I will be a Father to Israel and Ephraim will be my firstborn."

10 "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations. Proclaim it in distant coastlands. He who scattered Israel will gather them again, and watch over His flock like a shepherd." 11 "For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, redeeming him from the one who was stronger than he." 12 "They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion, they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD, the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well watered garden, and they will sorrow no more." 13 "Then the maidens will dance and be glad, as will the young men and the old. I will turn their mourning into gladness, I will give them comfort and joy in place of sorrow." 14 "I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with My bounty." 15 This is what the LORD says, "A voice is heard in Ramah with much weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

16 Thus says the LORD, "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded, and your children will return from the land of the enemy." 17 "There is hope for your future, " declares the lord."your children will return to their own land." 18 "I have surely heard Ephraim say in their grief, You have chastised me. I was like an untrained calf. Bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the LORD my God." 19 "After I strayed, I repented, after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth."

20 "Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him, and I will surely have mercy on him, " declares the LORD. 21 "Set up guideposts to direct your mind to the highway which you were meant to travel. Return, O virgin of Israel. Return to your cities."

22 "How long will you wander, O unfaithful daughter? The LORD will create a new thing on earth, a woman will surround a man." 23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Once again they will speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities after I have restored their fortunes. The LORD bless you, O righteousness dwelling, O holy mountain!" 24 "Judah and all its cities will dwell together in it, and the farmer and those who tend flocks." 25 "For I satisfy the weary and refresh those who languish." 26 At this I awoke and looked around. It had been a pleasant dream.

27 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "When I will replenish the houses of Israel and Judah with men and beasts." 28 "I have watched over them, plucking some up, using disasters to overthrow and destroy, always with their best interest in My heart." 29 "In those days people will no longer say, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'" 30 "Everyone will die for his own iniquity and those who eat sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge."

31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "When I will make a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah." 32 "It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I brought them by the hand out of Egypt. Though I carefully cared for them, they broke that covenant." 33 "Here is the covenant I will make with them. I will put My law within their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people." 34 "They will not have to teach each other about Me, for they will all know Me. I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more."

35 "Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The LORD of hosts is His name." 36 "If this fixed order departs from before Me," declares the LORD, "Then the offspring of Israel will also cease from being a nation before Me forever."

37 Thus says the LORD, "If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth mapped out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done." 38 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "When this city will be rebuilt for Me from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate." 39 "The measuring will go straight out to the hill of Gareb where it will then turn to Goath." 40 "And the whole valley of the dead bodies and ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD, it will not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever."

Jeremiah 32 - RWB Paraphrase (44 V)
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Jeremiah Buys Land In Judah
1 Here is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. 2 It was at that time that the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah was being held in the court of the guard in the house of the king of Judah. 3 Zedekiah had placed him there because he prophesied that the LORD was about to give the city into the hand of the king of Babylon. 4 Jeremiah had said that Zedekiah would not escape from the Chaldeans but would actually speak face to face with Nebuchadnezzar. 5 Then he would be taken to Babylon and remain there until the LORD visited him. Fighting the Babylonians would do no good. This is what the LORD had said to Zedekiah through Jeremiah.

6 And Jeremiah said, "The word of the LORD came to me, saying." 7 "Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, 'Buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption.'" 8 "So Hanamel my uncle came to me in the court of the guard just as the LORD had told me. He told me to please buy his field at Anathoth in Benjamin, for I had the right of possession and redemption. Then I knew that this was the Word of the LORD." 9 So I bought the field for seventeen shekels of silver. 10 I called in witnesses, signed and sealed the deed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. 11 I took the deed of purchase, both the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy, 12 and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, while Hanamel my uncle's son watched as did the witnesses who signed the deed and all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard. 13 As they watched I commanded Baruch, saying, 14 "Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, 'Take these deeds, both the sealed deed and the open one, and place them in an earthenware jar that they may be kept for a long time.'" 15 "For the LORD says, 'Houses, fields and vineyards will be bought in this land once again.'"

16 After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD, saying, 17 "O LORD, You have made the heaven and the earth by Your great power. Nothing is too difficult for You." 18 "You show lovingkindness to thousands and repay the iniquity of fathers unto their children after them. You are the great and mighty God. The LORD of Hosts is Your name." 19 "You are great in counsel and mighty in deed. You see everything that happens to the sons of men, and You give everyone according to his deeds." 20 "You made signs and wonders in Egypt, and even to this day You have made a name for Yourself." 21 "You brought Your people Israel out of Egypt. The signs and wonders which you did by Your mighty outstretched arm were a great terror." 22 "You gave Israel this land which You swore to their forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey." 23 "They came and took possession of it, but then they did not obey Your voice or follow Your law. They have not followed Your commands and that is why You have made this calamity to come upon them." 24 "And now the siege ramps are about to breech the city walls and it is to fall into the hand of the Chaldeans, because of the sword, the famine and the pestilence. What You have spoken has come to pass." 25 "You told me to buy a field for myself while witnesses watched, even as the city is about to fall to the Chaldeans."

26 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 27 "See now, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?" 28 "Therefore, this is what the LORD says, 'I am about to hand this city over to the Chaldeans and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.'" 29 "The Chaldeans will enter this city and set it on fire. The houses where the people burned incense to Baal along with their drink offerings will burn with it, for the people provoked Me to anger." 30 "The children of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil from their youth, and have provoked Me to anger," declares the LORD. 31 "This city has provoked Me to anger since the day it was built. It must be removed from before My face." 32 "This is coming to pass because of all the evil of their kings and leaders, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." 33 "They have turned their backs on Me. I was their teacher again and again, but they would not listen or receive instruction." 34 "They defiled the house that is called by My name by placing their detestable things in it." 35 "They built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Benhinnom, causing their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I never commanded. It never entered My mind that such a thing should be done. This is Judah's great sin."

36 "Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning this city of which is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by famine and pestilence." 37 "I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger. I will bring them back to this place and let them live once again in safety." 38 "They shall be My people, and I will be their God," 39 "and I will give them one heart that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them." 40 "I will make an everlasting covenant with them to not turn away from them, but to do them good. I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me." 41 "I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all My heart and all My soul." 42 "Just as I brought all this great disaster on this people, so I am going to bring on them all the good that I am promising."

43 "Though the land is desolate of man and beast, and given to the Chaldeans, yet fields will be bought in it once again." 44 "Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes," declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 33 - RWB Paraphrase (26 V)
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God Promises Peace And Prosperity
1 The Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was confined in the court of the guard. 2 Thus says the LORD, who made heaven and earth."The LORD is His name." 3 He said, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." 4 "For the LORD says concerning the houses of this city, and the houses of the kings of Judah which were broken down to use as a defense against the siege ramps and against the sword," 5 "while they are coming to fight with the Chaldeans and to fill them with the corpses of the men I have slain in My wrath, and from whom I have hidden My face because of all their wickedness," 6 "behold I will bring to it healing, and reveal an abundance of peace and truth." 7 "I will restore the fortunes of Israel, rebuilding them like they once were." 8 "I will cleanse and pardon them for their iniquity by which they sinned against Me." 9 "It will be for Me a great joy, praise and glory before all the nations of the earth which shall hear of all the good that I do for them. It will be a cause for fear and trembling because of all the peace and good that I do for My people."

10 This is what the LORD says, "You see this place as a desolate waste, without men or animals. Yet in the towns of Judah and the deserted streets of Jerusalem," 11 "you will hear the voice of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, the voice of those giving thanks to the LORD of hosts, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. You will hear those who bring a thank offering into the house of the LORD. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first," says the LORD. 12 This is what the LORD Almighty says, "In this place, desolate and without men or animals, in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks." 13 "In the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the Negev, in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who numbers them," says the LORD. 14 "Behold, the days are coming," declares the LORD, "When I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah." 15 "In those days I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth, and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth." 16 "In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety, and she will be called, 'The LORD is our righteousness.'."

17 For thus says the LORD, "David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel." 18 "And the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to prepare sacrifices continually." 19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 20 "If you can cause My covenant for the day and My covenant for the night to cease, from keeping their appointed times," 21 "then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers." 22 "As the stars cannot be counted, or the sand of the sea measured, so I will multiply David's descendants and the Levites who minister to Me." 23 And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 24 "Have you not noticed that the nations are saying that the LORD has rejected the two kingdoms He chose? So they despise my people and no longer regard them as a nation." 25 "This is what the LORD says, 'If I have not established My covenant with the day and the night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth," 26 "then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and I will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them."

Jeremiah 34 - RWB Paraphrase (22 V)
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Zedekiah Will Be Exiled To Babylon
1 While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled over were fighting against Jerusalem and its surrounding towns, the Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Go and tell Zedekiah king of Judah that I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire." 3 "You will not escape from his hand, but be captured and delivered into his hand. And you will see the king of Babylon face to face, and you will go to Babylon."

4 "Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus says the LORD, You will not die by the sword," 5 "but in peace. Spices will be burned for you as they were for your fathers, the former kings. I have declared the truth, " says the LORD.

6 So Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem. 7 The army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah, for they alone remained as fortified cities among the cities of Judah.

8 The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. 9 Each man was to set his male servant and female servant free if they were Hebrews, so that no brother be kept in bondage. 10 Everyone of the officials and the people entered into this covenant to obey it. 11 But afterwards they turned back from this covenant and took back the servants they had set free. 12 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 13 "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.'." 14 "I said that at the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew bother who was sold to you to serve you six years. But your forefathers did not obey Me." 15 "Recently you did what was right in My sight by each one of you releasing his neighbor. You made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name." 16 "Yet you went back on your covenant and profaned My name by taking back your male and female servants whom you had set free." 17 "Therefore, thus says the LORD, 'You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming the release of each man who is his brother. Behold, I am proclaiming a release to you, to the sword, to pestilence and to famine, and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.'." 18 "I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant by not fulfilling the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts," 19 "everyone one of you, great and small, who passed between the parts of the calf," 20 "I will give them into the hand of their enemies who seek their life. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth." 21 "I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah and his officials, into the hand of their enemies who seek their life, and into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon." 22 "I am bringing them back to this city to fight against it and to burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah desolate."

Jeremiah 35 - RWB Paraphrase (19 V)
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The Rechabites Demonstrate Obedience
1 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, 2 "Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak to them. Bring them into the house of the LORD, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink." 3 So I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons and the whole house of the Rechabites, 4 and I brought them into the house of the LORD, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the chamber of the officials above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the doorkeeper. 5 I set before them wine cups and pitchers of wine, and I said, "Drink wine!" 6 But they would not drink the wine because they said their father Jonadab the son of Rechab, had commanded them to never drink any wine. 7 He had told them to not build houses, sow seed, plant a vineyard or even own one. They were always to live in tents that they might live a long life in the land. 8 They said that they, their wives and their sons and daughters had obeyed their father's command. 9 Neither had they built houses to live in and they did not have vineyards or fields. 10 They had lived in tents according to the command of their father Jonadab. 11 But then they added, "When Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we decided to live in Jerusalem."

12 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 13 "Go and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 'Will you not receive instruction by listening to My words?'" 14 "Jonadab the son of Rechab, commanded his sons not to drink wine, and they have obeyed his command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not listened to Me." 15 "I sent all My servants the prophets again and again, asking you to turn from your evil ways of worshiping other gods. Had you obeyed Me, you might have dwelt in the land which I gave to your fathers, but you would not listen." 16 "While the sons of Jonadab observed the command of their father, this people has not listened to Me." 17 "Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am bringing on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I have called them but they did not answer.'"

18 Then Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father, keeping all of his commands," 19 "Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me always."

Jeremiah 36 - RWB Paraphrase (32 V)
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Baruch Reads God's Messages
1 In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD. 2 "Write on a scroll all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Israel and Judah, and all the nations, from the first time I spoke to you in the days of Josiah until now." 3 "Perhaps Judah will hear of all the calamity I plan to bring on them and every man will turn from his iniquity that I may forgive his sin."

4 So Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll while Jeremiah dictated the words the LORD had spoken to him. 5 Then he said to Baruch, "I am not allowed to go into the house of the LORD." 6 "So you are to go and read the words of the LORD from the scroll which you wrote at my dictation. Read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities." 7 "Perhaps they will make supplication to the LORD, and everyone will turn from his evil ways. For the LORD's anger is great against this people." 8 Baruch did just as Jeremiah the prophet had commanded, reading all the words of the LORD in the LORD's house.

9 In the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came to Jerusalem from the cities of Judah, proclaimed a fast before the LORD. 10 Then Baruch read to all the people from the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the LORD in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the New Gate of the LORD's house.

11 When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard the words of the LORD that Baruch read, 12 he went to the king's house and into the scribe's chamber. All the officials were sitting there, including Elishama the scribe, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor, Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah along with all the other officials. 13 Micaiah told them everything he had heard that Baruch read from the book to the people. 14 Then all the officials sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, "Bring the scroll from which you have read to the people." So Baruch the son of Neriah went with them carrying the scroll. 15 When he arrived they asked him to sit down and read the scroll to them. 16 After hearing all the words of the scroll, they turned to one another in fear, and said, "We shall have to report all this to the king." 17 They said to Baruch, "Tell us, please, how did you happen to write down all these words. Did Jeremiah dictate them for you to write?" 18 Baruch said, "He dictated every word and I wrote them with ink in the book." 19 Then the officials said to Baruch, "You and Jeremiah better go hide where no one can find you."

20 Then the officials went to the king in his court and reported everything they had heard. They had left the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe. 21 After hearing what they had to say, the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll from the chamber of Elishama the scribe. Jehudi read the scroll to the king along with all the officials who stood by the king. 22 It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment with a fire burning in the fire pot in front of him. 23 When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it from the scroll with a penknife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazier. He did this until all the scroll was consumed. 24 And the king and all his servants were not afraid. 25 Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah had pleaded with the king to not burn the scroll, but he would not listen.

26 The king told Jerahmeel the king's son, Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD had hidden them.

27 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll with the words which Baruch had written at Jeremiah's dictation. He said, 28 "Take another scroll and write out all the words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned." 29 "And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, Thus says the LORD, 'You have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you written that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and make man and beast to cease from it?'" 30 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, 'He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out in the heat of the day and the frost of the night.'." 31 "I will also punish him, his descendants and his servants for their iniquity. And I will bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the calamity that I have declared to them."

32 So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, and he wrote on it the dictation of Jeremiah. He wrote every word that had been in the book Jehoiakim had burned in the fire. He also wrote additional words.

Jeremiah 37 - RWB Paraphrase (21 V)
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Jeremiah Is Put In Prison
1 Now Zedekiah the son of Josiah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had made king in the land of Judah, reigned as king in place of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim. 2 Neither he, his servants or the people of the land listened to the Word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet. 3 King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "Please pray to the LORD our God on our behalf." 4 Jeremiah was still moving about among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. 5 At this time Pharaoh's army was on it way from Egypt. When the Chaldeans who had been besieging Jerusalem heard of this, they left off from besieging Jerusalem. 6 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 7 "This is what you are to say to the king of Judah, who asked you to inquire of Me: Behold, Pharaoh's army which has come to assist you is going to return to Egypt." 8 "Then the Chaldeans will return to fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it with fire." 9 "Thus says the LORD, 'Do not be deceived by thinking the Chaldeans will go away for good." 10 "Even should you defeat the entire Chaldean army leaving only wounded men among them, they would rise up and burn this city with fire."

11 The army of the Chaldeans had lifted the siege from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh's army. 12 Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin in order to take possession of some property. 13 As he was passing through the Gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard by the name of Irijah, the son of Shelemiah the son of Hananiah, arrested Jeremiah the prophet, accusing him of going over to the Chaldeans. 14 Jeremiah said, "That is a lie! I am not going over to the Chaldeans, but Irijah would not listen. So he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials."

15 The officials were angry at Jeremiah and beat him. They put him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, which they had made into the prison. 16 Jeremiah remained in the dungeon that was a vaulted cell for many days.

17 Now King Zedekiah secretly brought him to his palace to asked him if there was any Word from the LORD? Jeremiah said, "There is! You will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon!" 18 Then Jeremiah asked, "How have I sinned against you or you servants or the people, that I should be placed in prison?" 19 "Where are your prophets who have told you that the king of Babylon will not come against you or this land?" 20 "Please hear me, my lord. Please do not return me to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there." 21 So King Zedekiah had Jeremiah placed in the court of the guardhouse and gave him daily rations of a loaf of bread from the baker's street until the bread in the city was gone.

Jeremiah 38 - RWB Paraphrase (28 V)
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Jeremiah Is Rescued
1 Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malchiah heard what Jeremiah was telling all the people. He was saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD, 'Those who stay in this city will die by the sword, famine and pestilence. But he who goes out to the Chaldeans will not die.'." 3 "Thus says the LORD, This city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon."

4 So these officials told the king to put Jeremiah to death because he was discouraging the men of war who were left in the city, besides the rest of the people, by speaking such words to them. They said that he was not seeking the well being of the people. 5 So King Zedekiah said, "He is in your hands. Do with him as you wish."

6 So they let Jeremiah down with ropes into the cistern of Malchiah the king's son, which is in the court of the guardhouse. And he sank into the mud at the bottom of the cistern. 7 But Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch in the king's palace, heard that they had placed Jeremiah in the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin, 8 Ebedmelech went out and spoke to the king, saying, 9 "O king, these men have acted wickedly toward Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern. He will die there, for there is no more bread in the city." 10 Then the king commanded EbedMelech the Ethiopian to take thirty men and lift Jeremiah out of the dungeon before he died. 11 So Ebedmelech took the men under his authority and went into the king's palace to a place beneath the storeroom and got some old rags. He let them down by ropes to Jeremiah. 12 He told Jeremiah to put the old rags under his armpits to pad the ropes, and Jeremiah did this. 13 Then they pulled Jeremiah out of the cistern with the ropes, and he stayed in the court of the guardhouse.

14 Then King Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to the third entrance of the house of the LORD, and said to him, "I am going to ask you something. Do not hide anything from me." 15 Jeremiah replied, "If I tell you, you will surely put me to death. And if I give you advice I know you will not listen." 16 But King Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in secret, saying, "As the LORD lives, who gives us life, I will not put you to death nor give you over to the hand of those who seek your life."

17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "Thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, if you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live and this city will not be burned with fire. Then you and your household will survive." 18 "But if you will not go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given to the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire. And you will not escape from their hand." 19 Then king Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "I am afraid of the Jews who have already gone over to the Chaldeans, for if I am turned over to them, they will abuse me." 20 Jeremiah replied, "You will not be given over to them. Please obey the LORD in what I am saying to you, that it may go well with you." 21 "But if you refuse to go out, this is what the LORD has said will happen to you:" 22 "all the women who are left in your house shall be surrendered to the king of Babylon's princes. These women will say, "Our king's close friends have prevailed against him. His feet have sunk in the mire, and they have deserted him. 23 "All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned."

24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Let no one know what you have told me and you will not die." 25 "If the officials hear that I have talked with you and come asking about it, promising to keep you alive it you tell them," 26 "tell them that you were presenting your petition to the king to not be returned to the house of Jonathan to die there."

27 Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him. So he reported to them what the king had told him to say, since the conversation had not been overheard. 28 So Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guardhouse until Jerusalem was captured.

Jeremiah 39 - RWB Paraphrase (18 V)
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Nebuchadnezzar Captures Jerusalem
1 Jerusalem was captured in the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah. It was then that then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it, 2 in the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year. On the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached. 3 And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Nergalsharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergalsharezer, Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. 4 When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled from the city at night by way of the king's garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah. 5 The army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath where he passed sentence on him. 6 He slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah, as well as all the nobles of Judah. 7 Then he put out Zedekiah's eyes and bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.

8 The Chaldeans burned the king's palace and the houses of the people. And they broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried in exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. 10 Some of the poorest who had nothing, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah, giving them the vineyards and fields.

11 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave orders concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, saying, 12 "Look after him, and do not harm him. Do for him whatever he asks." 13 So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, NergalSharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon, 14 took Jeremiah out of the court of the guardhouse and entrusted him to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him home. So Jeremiah stayed in Jerusalem among the people.

15 The Word of the LORD had come to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guardhouse, saying, 16 "Go and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I will bring My Words upon this city for evil, and not for good, and they will take place as you watch.'." 17 "But I will deliver you on that day, " declares the LORD, "And you will not be given into the hand of the men whom you dread." 18 "For I will certainly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword. You will have your own life as booty, because you have trusted in Me, " declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 40 - RWB Paraphrase (16 V)
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Jeremiah Stays In The Occupied Land
1 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard had released him from Ramah, where he had been bound in chains among all the exiles of Jerusalem and Judah, who were about to be exiled to Babylon. 2 The captain of the bodyguard said to Jeremiah, "The LORD your God promised this calamity against this place." 3 "And the LORD has brought about what He promised, because you have sinned against Him by not listening to His voice." 4 "But I am freeing you today from the chains on your hands. If you like you may come with me to Babylon where I will look after you. If you prefer, you may stay wherever you please here in Judah. Do what seems good to you." 5 As Jeremiah hesitated, he said, "Go back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and stay with him, or you may go anywhere you please." So the captain of the bodyguard gave him a ration and a gift and let him go. 6 Jeremiah then went to Mizpah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam and stayed with him among the people who were left in the land.

7 All the commanders of the forces that were still in the field, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam over the land, putting him in charge of the men, women and children who were among the poorest of the land had not been exiled to Babylon. 8 These commanders and their men came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, along with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite. 9 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore to them and to their men, saying, "Do not be afraid of serving the Chaldeans. Stay in the land serve the king of Babylon, that it may go well with you." 10 "I am going to stay at Mizpah to stand for you before the Chaldeans who come to us. Now you should gather in wine and summer fruit and oil and put them in your storage vessels, and live in your cities which you have taken over."

11 When all the Jews who were in Moab and among the sons of Ammon and in Edom and who were in all the other countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant for Judah, and that he had appointed over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, 12 they returned from all those places to which they had been driven and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and gathered in wine and summer fruit in great abundance.

13 Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were in the field came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, 14 and said to him, "Are you well aware that Baalis the king of the sons of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?" But Gedaliah did not believe them. 15 Johanan the son of Kareah spoke secretly to Gedaliah in Mizpah, saying, "Let me go and kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and not a man will know! Why should he take your life, so that all the Jews who are gathered to you will be scattered and the remnant of Judah perish?" 16 But Gedaliah said to Johanan the son of Kareah, "Do not do this thing, for what you are saying is a lie about Ishmael."

Jeremiah 41 - RWB Paraphrase (18 V)
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Gedaliah Is Assassinated
1 In the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was of royal blood and had been one of the king's officers, came with ten men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah to eat with him. 2 Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him arose and struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword, putting to death the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land. 3 He also struck down all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, as well as the Chaldeans who were found there who were men of war.

4 The next day after Gedaliah had been killed and no one knew about it, 5 eighty men came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria with their beards shaved off, their clothes torn and their bodies gashed. They were bringing grain offerings and incense to the house of the LORD. 6 Ishmael went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went, and as he met them, he said to them, "Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam!" 7 But as soon as they came into the city, Ishmael and the men with him slaughtered most of these men and cast them into the cistern. 8 Ten of the men said to Ishmael, "Do not put us to death, for we have stores of wheat, barley, oil and honey hidden in the field." So he did not put them to death with the rest of the eighty. 9 The cistern where Ishmael cast the corpses was the one that King Asa had made on account of Baasha, king of Israel. Now it was filled with those Ishmael had slain. 10 Then Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king's daughters and all the people who were left in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had put under the charge of Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Thus Ishmael the son of Nethaniah took them captive and proceeded to cross over to the sons of Ammon. He also took captive all the remainder of the people in Mizpah, including the king's daughters and all the people left in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had put under the charge of Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Thus Ishmael the son of Nethaniah took them captive and proceeded to cross over to the sons of Ammon. 11 Now Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done. 12 So they gathered all the men and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah. They found him by the great pool that is in Gibeon.

13 The people who were with Ishmael were glad to see Johanan the son of Kareah and the commanders of the forces that were with him. 14 They turned from Ishmael and went over to Johanan the son of Kareah. 15 But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men and went to the sons of Ammon. 16 Then Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him led away all the survivors from Mizpah whom he had recovered from Ishmael after he had assassinated Gedaliah son of Ahikam, including the soldiers, the women, children and court officials he had brought from Gibeon. 17 And they stayed in Geruth Chimham, which is beside Bethlehem, before proceeding to Egypt, 18 for they were afraid of the Chaldeans, since Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.

Jeremiah 42 - RWB Paraphrase (22 V)
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The People Ask The Lord What They Should Do
1 Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, 2 came to Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, "Please hear our petition and pray to the LORD your God for all of us. As you can see, we were once many, and now we are only a few." 3 "Ask the LORD what we should do."

4 Then Jeremiah said to them, "I have heard your request and I will pray to the LORD for you and then tell you everything He says." 5 The people replied, "May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not follow the whole message He gives you for us." 6 "Whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the LORD our God, so that it may be well with us."

7 At the end of ten days the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah. 8 He called for Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the commanders that were with him, and the people small and great. 9 He said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel to whom you presented your petition:" 10 "if you stay in this land I will build you up. I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the calamity I have brought on you." 11 "Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, even though you now fear him, for I am with you. I will save you and deliver you from his hand." 12 "I will show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own soil." 13 "But if you decide to not listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and you leave this land," 14 "and you go to Egypt where you think you will always have bread and hear no more of war," 15 "then the LORD God of Israel says to this remnant of Judah," 16 "the sword which you fear will overtake you, and famine will follow you in Egypt, and you will die there." 17 "All the men who decide to go to Egypt to live there will die by the sword, famine and pestilence. None will survive the calamity that I am going to bring on them." 18 "For the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, 'As My anger and wrath have been poured out on those who lived in Jerusalem, so will My wrath be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You will be an object of cursing, horror, condemnation and reproach, and you will never see this place again.'."

19 "The LORD has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, Do not go into Egypt! You should clearly understand that the LORD has spoken against this idea." 20 "If you do this you are deceiving yourselves. You asked me to pray to the LORD your God for you. You said that you would do whatever He told you to do." 21 "So I have told you today what He has said to you, but you have not obeyed what the LORD your God has told you to do." 22 "Be clear in your understanding that you will die by the sword, famine and pestilence when you leave this place."

Jeremiah 43 - RWB Paraphrase (13 V)
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In Egypt Jeremiah Warns Of Judgment
1 When Jeremiah had finished telling the people all the words of the LORD, 2 Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, "You are telling us a lie! The LORD our God has not sent you to say that we are not to go to Egypt." 3 "Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us. He wants us to remain under the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death or exile us to Babylon."

4 So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces, and all the people, did not obey the LORD by staying in Judah. 5 They took the entire remnant of Judah who had returned from all the nations to which they had been driven away, 6 the men, the women and the children, the king's daughters and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the body guard had left with Gedaliah, including Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe. 7 They did not obey the LORD for they entered Egypt as far as Tahpanhes.

8 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 9 "While some the Jews are watching, hide some large stones in the clay of the brick kiln at the entrance of Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes." 10 "Say to these Jews, 'The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says, Behold, I will send My servant Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon to set his pavilion over the stones I have hidden.'." 11 "And he will come and strike the land of Egypt, delivering some to death by the sword, and others to captivity." 12 "And I shall set fire to the houses of the gods of Egypt and carry the gods away captive. He shall wrap Egypt around himself as a shepherd puts on a garment. He will depart unscathed," 13 "after he has shattered the obelisks of Bethshemesh and burn the temples of their gods with fire."

Jeremiah 44 - RWB Paraphrase (30 V)
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Conquest Of Egypt Predicted
1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning the Jews living in the land of Egypt, in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and the land of Pathros. 2 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "You have seen all the calamity that I brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah. This day those places are in ruins with no one living there." 3 "This has happened because of their wickedness which provoked Me to anger, their continual burning of sacrifices to serve other gods who neither they or their fathers knew." 4 "I sent My prophets time and again, telling you not to do these terrible things." 5 "But you would not listen or change your ways." 6 "So My wrath was poured out on you and your cities as it was on Jerusalem which is now in ruin and desolation." 7 "The LORD is asking why you are doing great harm to yourselves, cutting off man, woman and child, from among the living, so that there will be none of you left alive?" 8 "You provoke Me to anger with the things you make, burning sacrifices to the gods in Egypt. You are becoming a curse and a reproach among the nations." 9 "Have you forgotten your father's wickedness, or that of the kings of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, as well as your own?" 10 "To this day no one has been contrite, or wanted to walk by My law which I gave to you and your fathers." 11 "Therefore I, the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, am setting My face against you as I cut off all Judah." 12 "I will take away the remnant of Judah that plans to live in Egypt. They will fall by the sword and famine. Everyone will die." 13 "I will punish those who came to Egypt like I punished Jerusalem." 14 "There will be no survivors of those who have entered Egypt. None will return to Judah except for a few refugees." 15 Then the men who knew that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods in the company of other women said to Jeremiah, 16 "we are not going to listen to what you say!" 17 "We will surely follow our own council and burn sacrifices to the queen of heaven, like our forefathers, and our kings." 18 "Since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven we have lacked everything and met our end by the sword and famine." 19 And the women, said, "When we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven without our husbands, we made sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her."

20 Then Jeremiah said to all of the people who had said such things, 21 "the LORD has seen the smoke of the sacrifices you burned in Judah. You did this, as did your forefathers and the kings and princes." 22 "The LORD is no longer able to endure the abominations you have done. Thus your land is in ruins, an object of horror." 23 "This calamity has come upon you because you have sinned against the LORD by doing these things."

24 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people, including the women, "Hear what the LORD says, all of you who have come to Egypt from Judah," 25 "the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says, 'You and your wives have done just as you have said, sacrificing to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her. Go ahead and perform your vows!'" 26 "But hear what the LORD says. All those from Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, behold, I have sworn by My great name, that My name shall never be invoked again by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, who says, 'As the LORD GOD lives.'" 27 "For I am watching over the Jews in Egypt for harm and not for good. They will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed." 28 "Those who escape the sword and return to the land of Judah from Egypt will be very few. Then the remnant of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs." 29 "This will be the sign to you, declares the LORD, to show that I am punishing you." 30 "Behold, I am going to give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt to those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon."

Jeremiah 45 - RWB Paraphrase (5 V)
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Message To Baruch
1 This is Jeremiah's message to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written the words that Jeremiah dictated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah. 2 "Thus says the LORD God of Israel to you, O Baruch." 3 "You said, 'Woe is me for the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I groan and I am without rest.'." 4 "God has said to tell you this: 'Behold, what I have built I am about to tear down. What I planted I will uproot, even the whole land.'." 5 "Are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not do this. I am bringing disaster on all flesh, but I will give you your life as booty in any place you go."

Jeremiah 46 - RWB Paraphrase (28 V)
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Defeat Of Pharaoh Foretold
1 This is what the LORD said to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. 2 "Concerning Egypt, this is the message against the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:" 3 "prepare your shields, large and small, and march out to battle!" 4 "Harness your horses and mount your steeds! Take your positions with your helmets on! Polish your spears, put on your armor!" 5 "See, they are terrified, and they are drawing back. Their mighty men are defeated and are fleeing. They have taken refuge in flight. Terror is on every side!" This is what the LORD declares. 6 "Even though some are swift, do not let any escape. To the north beside the river Euphrates they have stumbled and fallen." 7 "Who is it that rises like the Nile, whose waters surge?" 8 "Egypt surges like the Nile. He thinks he will cover the land destroy the city and its inhabitants." 9 "Advance, O horses, and drive madly, O chariots! Let the warriors go forth, men of Ethiopia and Put, who handle the shield, and men of Lud, skilled in handling the bow." 10 "In fact, the day belongs to the LORD who will avenge Himself of His foes. The sword will devour, causing a slaughter for the LORD God of hosts. This will happen in the north by the river Euphrates." 11 "Go up to Gilead to get medicine, O virgin daughter of Egypt, but it will not help. No matter how many remedies you get, there will be no healing." 12 "The nations have heard of your shame, and everyone hears your cry of distress." 13 This is the message the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, telling of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon coming to attack Egypt: 14 "announce this in Egypt, proclaim it in Migdol, in Memphis and Tahpanhes. Get ready, for the sword has devoured those around you." 15 "Why are your valiant men swept away? They cannot stand because the LORD has pushed them down." 16 "They stumble and fall together. They try to get up and return to their people." 17 "There they will exclaim, 'Pharaoh king of Egypt is only a loud noise. He has missed his opportunity.'" 18 "As surely as I live," declares the LORD Almighty, "One will come who is like Tabor among the mountains, like Carmel by the sea." 19 "Make your baggage ready for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, for Memphis will become a desolation. It will be burned down and be without inhabitants."

20 "Egypt is a very pretty heifer, but destruction comes from the north." 21 "The mercenaries in her ranks are like fattened calves. They too will turn and flee. They will not stand their ground, for the day of disaster and punishment is coming upon them." 22 "Egypt will hiss like a fleeing serpent as the enemy advances in force. Like woodcutters with axes they will come against her." 23 "They will chop down her forest," declares the LORD, "Dense though it be. They are more numerous than locusts, and cannot be counted." 24 "The daughter of Egypt will be put to shame, handed over to the people of the north."

25 The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, "Behold, I am going to punish Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh along with Egypt, her gods, her kings and even those who trust in Pharaoh." 26 "I shall give them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. However, eventually it will be inhabited as in the days of old." 27 "But as for you, My servant Jacob, do not be afraid! For, I am going to save you from afar, and your descendants from the land of their captivity, and Jacob will return and be secure with no one to make him tremble." 28 "O Jacob My servant, do not fear, " declares the LORD, "For I am with you. For I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you. Yet I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you and punish you."

Jeremiah 47 - RWB Paraphrase (7 V)
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Prophecy Against Philistia
1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh conquered Gaza. 2 Thus says the LORD, "Behold, waters are going to rise from the north and become an overflowing torrent to the land in all its fullness. Men will cry out, and every inhabitant of the land will wail," 3 "at the noise of the galloping hooves of his stallions, the tumult of his chariots, and the rumbling of his wheels. The fathers do not turned back for their children because their hands are so weak." 4 "They fear the day when the LORD will come to destroy the Philistines from Tyre to Sidon, even the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor."

5 "Baldness has come upon Gaza. Ashkelon has been ruined. O remnant of their valley, how long will you cut yourself?" 6 "Ah, sword of the LORD, how long until you are put away in your sheath, and put to rest?" 7 "But how can you be quiet when the LORD has given an order? For He has determined this against the seacoast."

Jeremiah 48 - RWB Paraphrase (47 V)
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Prophecy Against Moab
1 This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says concerning Moab."Woe to Nebo, for it has been destroyed. Kiriathaim has been captured and put to shame. Its lofty stronghold has been shattered." 2 "There is no more praise for Moab. Calamity has been devised against Heshbon. Let her be a nation no longer, and the sword shall follow after you." 3 "Hear the cries from Horonaim, cries of great havoc and destruction." 4 "Moab will be broken, her little ones have cried out in distress." 5 "They go up the way to Luhith, weeping bitterly. On the road down to Horonaim can be heard anguished cries over the destruction."

6 "Flee, save your lives, that you may be like a juniper in the wilderness." 7 "You will be captured because you trusted in your own achievements and treasures. Chemosh will go off into exile along with his priests and princes." 8 "The destroyer will come against every town, and none will escape. The valley will be ruined and the plateau destroyed, because the LORD has spoken."

9 "Give wings to Moab, for she will flee away, and her cities will become a desolation, without inhabitants." 10 "Cursed be the one who is negligent in the LORD's work, and restrains his sword from drawing blood."