Jer 16, Jer 37 | 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 37

Jeremiah Warns Zedekiah

1 ^alZedekiah the son of Josiah, ^amwhom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah, reigned instead of ^anConiah the son of Jehoiakim. 2 ^aoBut neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.

3 King Zedekiah sent ^apJehucal the son of ^aqShelemiah, and ^arZephaniah the priest, the son of ^asMaaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Please ^atpray for us to the Lord our God.” 4 ^auNow Jeremiah was still going in and out among the people, ^avfor he had not yet been put in prison. 5 ^awThe army of Pharaoh had come out of Egypt. And when ^axthe Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news about them, ^aythey withdrew from Jerusalem.

6 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: 7 “Thus says the Lord, God of Israel: Thus shall you say to the king of Judah who ^azsent you to me to inquire of me, ‘Behold, ^baPharaoh’s army that came to help you is about to ^bbreturn to Egypt, to its own land. 8 And ^bcthe Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city. ^bdThey shall capture it and burn it with fire. 9 Thus says the Lord, Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,” for they will not go away. 10 ^beFor even if you should defeat the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them only wounded men, every man in his tent, they would rise up and ^bfburn this city with fire.’”

Jeremiah Imprisoned

11 Now when ^bgthe Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh’s army, 12 Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem to go to ^bhthe land of Benjamin ^bito receive his portion there ^bjamong the people. 13 When he was at ^bkthe Benjamin Gate, a sentry there named Irijah the son of ^blShelemiah, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, ^bm“You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” 14 And Jeremiah said, “It is a lie; I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah would not listen to him, and seized Jeremiah and brought him to ^bnthe officials. 15 And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him ^boand imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made a prison.

16 ^bpWhen Jeremiah had come to the dungeon cells and remained there many days, 17 King Zedekiah sent for him and received him. The king questioned him ^bqsecretly in his house and said, “Is there any word from the Lord?” Jeremiah said, “There is.” Then he said, ^br“You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.” 18 Jeremiah also said to King Zedekiah, “What wrong have I done to you or your servants or this people, ^bsthat you have put me in prison? 19 ^btWhere are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you and against this land’? 20 Now hear, please, O my lord the king: ^bulet my humble plea come before you and ^bvdo not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, lest I die there.” 21 So King Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to ^bwthe court of the guard. And a loaf of bread was given him daily from the bakers’ street, ^bxuntil all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in ^bythe court of the guard.