Jer 16, Jer 28 | ESV | STEP | The word of the Lord came to me:

1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. 3 For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: 4 ^aThey shall die of deadly diseases. ^bThey shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. ^cThey shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ^dThey shall perish by the sword and by famine, ^eand their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

5 “For thus says the Lord: ^fDo not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the Lord. 6 Both great and small shall die in this land. ^gThey shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or ^hcut himself ⁱor make himself bald for them. 7 No one shall ^jbreak bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. 8 You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. 9 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^kBehold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

10 “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ^l‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 then you shall say to them: ^m‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and ⁿhave gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, 12 and because ^oyou have done worse than your fathers, for behold, ^pevery one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. 13 Therefore ^qI will hurl you out of this land into ^ra land that neither you nor your fathers have known, ^sand there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

The Lord Will Restore Israel

14 ^t“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ^u‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but ^v‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel ^wout of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For ^xI will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

16 “Behold, ^yI am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out ^zof the clefts of the rocks. 17 For ^aamy eyes are on all their ways. ^abThey are not hidden from me, ^acnor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 But first ^adI will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and ^aehave filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

19 ^afO Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
^agmy refuge in the day of trouble,
^ahto you shall the nations come
from the ends of the earth and say:
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
^aiworthless things in which there is no profit.
20 Can man make for himself ^ajgods?
Such are not gods!”
21 “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that ^akmy name is the Lord.”

Jeremiah 28

Hananiah the False Prophet

1 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of ^alZedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of ^amAzzur, the prophet from ^anGibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^aoI have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 ^apWithin ^aqtwo years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place ^arJeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord, ^asfor I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”

5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord, 6 and the prophet Jeremiah said, ^at“Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord, and all the exiles. 7 Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. 8 ^auThe prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. 9 ^avAs for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.”

10 Then the prophet Hananiah took the ^awyoke-bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke them. 11 And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, ^ax“Thus says the Lord: ^ayEven so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of ^azall the nations within two years.” But Jeremiah the prophet went his way.

12 Sometime after the prophet ^baHananiah had broken the yoke-bars from off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 13 “Go, tell Hananiah, ‘Thus says the Lord: You have broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron. 14 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put upon the neck of all these nations ^bban iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, ^bcand they shall serve him, ^bdfor I have given to him even the beasts of the field.’” 15 And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah, ^bethe Lord has not sent you, ^bfand you have made this people trust in a lie. 16 Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, ^bgbecause you have uttered rebellion against the Lord.’”

17 In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died.