UST JER Chapter 29

◄ JER 29 ► ║ ═ ©

1-2 1-2After King Jeconiah, his mother, his court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen and metalworkers had left Jerusalem and gone to Babylon, Jeremiah the prophet wrote a letter and sent it from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the other people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

3 He sent the letter through Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah the king of Judah was sending to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. This is what the letter said:

4 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, the God of Israel, says this to all of you whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses there and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they also have children. Increase in number there; do not become fewer. 7 Also, do things that will cause things to go well for the people who live in the city where I have sent you to live, and pray to Yahweh for that city, because when things go well for that city, things will also go well for you.

8 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, the God of Israel, says this: Do not let your prophets who are among you and your fortune-tellers trick you. Do not pay attention to the dreams that you are encouraging yourselves to dream, 9 because those prophets are lying to you and claiming to speak for me. I did not send them.” That is what Yahweh has declared.

10 “Yahweh says this: When seventy years have passed for Babylon, I will help you and keep my good promise to you by bringing you back to this place. 11 I know what I intend to do for you,” Yahweh has declared. “I intend to help you prosper, not to harm you. I intend to give you a hopeful future. 12 At that time you will call out to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will pay attention to you. 13 You will earnestly desire for me to help you and you will find me when you pursue me with complete sincerity. 14 I will let you find me,” Yahweh has declared. “I will bring you back from captivity and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have scattered you,” Yahweh has declared. “I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you away.”

15 I am saying this because you have said, “Yahweh has appointed prophets for us here in Babylon.” 16 This is what Yahweh says about the king who sits on David’s throne and about all the people who are living in this city -- your relatives who did not go into exile with you. 17 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, says this: “Pay attention! I am sending war, famine, and disease against them. I will make them like figs that are so bad that no one can eat them. 18 I am about to cause them to experience wars, famines, and diseases. I will make the people of every kingdom on earth horrified when they hear about them. Among all the nations where I have scattered them, they will be the object of peoples curses, and people will feel shocked, will whistle in contempt, and will mock them. 19 I will do this because those people refused to pay attention to what I said to them,” Yahweh has declared, “messages that I persistently gave to my prophets whom I sent to them. But you exiles also did not pay attention.” That is what Yahweh has declared.

20 So listen to what Yahweh says, all of you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21 Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, the God of Israel, says this about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are speaking lies to you and claiming to speak for me: “I am about to allow the soldiers of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, to seize them and take them to King Nebuchadnezzar, and he will execute them while you are watching. 22 All you exiles from Judah in Babylon will say this when you curse someone, ‘I hope Yahweh will do to you what he did to Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in a fire!’ 23 That will happen because they did something disgraceful among the Israelite people; they committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and they spoke lies, claiming to speak for me, even though I never told them to say those things. I know about this, and I can testify to it,” Yahweh has declared.

24 Yahweh told me to say this to Shemaiah the Nehelamite, 25 “Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, the God of Israel, says this: Because you sent letters on your own authority to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, and to all the other priests, and you wrote:

26 ‘Yahweh has appointed you as priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be in charge of overseeing Yahweh’s temple. You should put into the stocks and the iron collar anyone who acts like a crazy person and claims to be a prophet. 27 So why haven’t you done anything to stop Jeremiah from the town of Anathoth, who claims to be a prophet among you? 28 For because of this he sent a message to us here in Babylon, saying, “Your exile will last a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.” ’ 29 And when Zephaniah the priest received the letter he brought it to me and read it in my presence.

30 Then Yahweh gave this message to Jeremiah. Yahweh said, 31 “Send a message to all the exiles and tell them, ‘Yahweh says this about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you even though I did not send him, and he has caused you to trust in lies, 32 because of that Yahweh says: know that I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. None of his descendants will live among this people, and he will not experience the good things that I will do for my people,’ ” Yahweh has declared, “’because he has incited you to rebel against Yahweh.’ ”