Jeremiah 19

1 Thus said the LORD: Go, buy a potter's earthen flask. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests,
2 and go out toward the Valley of Ben-hinnom, at the entrance of the Potsherd Gate; there proclaim the words which I will speak to you:
3 Listen to the word of the LORD, kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such evil upon this place that all who hear of it will feel their ears tingle.
4 This is because they have forsaken me and alienated this place by burning in it incense to strange gods which neither they nor their fathers knew; and the kings of Judah have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
5 They have built high places for Baal to immolate their sons in fire as holocausts to Baal: such a thing as I neither commanded nor spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind.
6 Therefore, days will come, says the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather, the Valley of Slaughter.
7 In this place I will foil the plan of Judah and Jerusalem; I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those that seek their lives. Their corpses I will give as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.
8 I will make this city an object of amazement and derision. Because of all its wounds, every passer-by will be amazed and will catch his breath.
9 I will have them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters; they shall eat one another's flesh during the strict siege by which their enemies and those who seek their lives will confine them.
10 And you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who went with you,
11 and say to them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: Thus will I smash this people and this city, as one smashes a clay pot so that it cannot be repaired. And Topheth shall be a burial place, for lack of place to bury elsewhere.
12 Thus I will do to this place and to its inhabitants, says the LORD; I will make this city like Topheth.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the palaces of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Topheth, all the houses upon whose roofs they burnt incense to the whole host of heaven and poured out libations to strange gods.
14 When Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the court of the house of God and said to all the people:
15 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I will surely bring upon this city all the evil with which I threatened it, because they have stiffened their necks and have not obeyed my words.

Jeremiah 20

1 Jeremiah was heard prophesying these things by the priest Pashhur, son of Immer, chief officer in the house of the LORD.
2 So he had the prophet scourged and placed in the stocks at the upper Gate of Benjamin in the house of the LORD.
3 The next morning, after Pashhur had released Jeremiah from the stocks, the prophet said to him: Instead of Pashhur, the LORD will name you Terror on every side.
4 For thus says the LORD: Indeed, I will deliver you to terror, you and all your friends. Your own eyes shall see them fall by the sword of their enemies. All Judah I will deliver to the king of Babylon, who shall take them captive to Babylon or slay them with the sword.
5 All the wealth of this city, all it has toiled for and holds dear, all the treasures of the kings of Judah, I will give as plunder into the hands of their foes, who shall seize it and carry it away to Babylon.
6 You Pashhur, and all the members of your household shall go into exile. To Babylon you shall go, you and all your friends; there you shall die and be buried, because you have prophesied lies to them.
7 You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.
8 Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; The word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day.
9 I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
10 Yes, I hear the whisperings of many: Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him! All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail, and take our vengeance on him.
11 But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. In their failure they will be put to utter shame, to lasting, unforgettable confusion.
12 O LORD of hosts, you who test the just, who probe mind and heart, Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.
13 Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD, For he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!
14 Cursed be the day on which I was born! May the day my mother gave me birth never be blessed!
15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, A child, a son, has been born to you! filling him with great joy.
16 Let that man be like the cities which the LORD relentlessly overthrew; Let him hear war cries in the morning, battle alarms at noonday,
17 because he did not dispatch me in the womb! Then my mother would have been my grave, her womb confining me forever.
18 Why did I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days in shame?

Jeremiah 21

1 The message which came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent him Pashhur, son of Malchiah, and the priest Zephaniah, son of Maaseiah, with this request:
2 Inquire for us of the LORD, because Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is attacking us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all his wonderful works, so that he will withdraw from us.
3 But Jeremiah answered them: This is what you shall report to Zedekiah:
4 Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I will turn back in your hands the weapons with which you intend to fight the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls. These weapons I will pile up in the midst of this city,
5 and I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and mighty arm, in anger, and wrath, and great rage!
6 I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die in a great pestilence.
7 After that, says the LORD, I will hand over Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his ministers and the people in this city who survive pestilence, sword, and famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, into the hands of their enemies and those who seek their lives. He shall strike them with the edge of the sword, without quarter, without pity or mercy.
8 And to this people you shall say: Thus says the LORD: See, I am giving you a choice between life and death.
9 Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword or famine or pestilence. But whoever leaves and surrenders to the besieging Chaldeans shall live and have his life as booty.
10 For I have turned against this city, for its woe and not for its good, says the LORD. It shall be given into the power of the king of Babylon who shall burn it with fire.
11 To the royal house of Judah: Hear the word of the LORD,
12 O house of David! Thus says the LORD: Each morning dispense justice, rescue the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor, Lest my fury break out like fire which burns without being quenched, because of the evil of your deeds.
13 Beware! I am against you, Valley-site, Rock of the Plain, says the LORD. You who say, Who will attack us, who can penetrate our retreats?
14 I will punish you, says the LORD, as your deeds deserve! I will kindle a fire in its forest that shall devour all its surroundings.

Jeremiah 22

1 The LORD told me this: Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and there deliver this message:
2 You shall say: Listen to the word of the LORD, king of Judah, who sit on the throne of David, you, your ministers, and your people that enter by these gates!
3 Thus says the LORD: Do what is right and just. Rescue the victim from the hand of his oppressor. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
4 If you carry out these commands, kings who succeed to the throne of David will continue to enter the gates of this palace, riding in chariots or mounted on horses, with their ministers, and their people.
5 But if you do not obey these commands, I swear by myself, says the LORD: this palace shall become rubble.
6 For thus says the LORD concerning the palace of the king of Judah: Though you be to me like Gilead, like the peak of Lebanon, I will turn you into a waste, a city uninhabited.
7 Against you I will send destroyers, each with his axe: They shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
8 Many people will pass by this city and ask one another: Why has the LORD done this to so great a city?
9 And the answer will be given: Because they have deserted their covenant with the LORD, their God, by worshiping and serving strange gods.
10 Weep not for him who is dead, mourn not for him! Weep rather for him who is going away; never again will he see the land of his birth.
11 Thus says the LORD concerning Shallum, son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father as king. He has left this place never to return.
12 Rather, he shall die in the place where they exiled him; this land he shall not see again.
13 Woe to him who builds his house on wrong, his terraces on injustice; Who works his neighbor without pay, and gives him no wages.
14 Who says, I will build myself a spacious house, with airy rooms, Who cuts out windows for it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermillion.
15 Must you prove your rank among kings by competing with them in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink? He did what was right and just, and it went well with him.
16 Because he dispensed justice to the weak and the poor, it went well with him. Is this not true knowledge of me? says the LORD.
17 But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except on your own gain, On shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion.
18 Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not lament him, Alas! my brother; Alas! sister. They shall not lament him, Alas, Lord! alas, Majesty!
19 The burial of an ass shall he be given, dragged forth and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Scale Lebanon and cry out, in Bashan lift up your voice; Cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are crushed.
21 I spoke to you when you were secure, but you answered, I will not listen. This has been your way from your youth, not to listen to my voice.
22 The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds, your lovers shall go into exile. Surely then you shall be ashamed and confounded because of all your wickedness.
23 You who dwell on Lebanon, who nest in the cedars, How you shall groan when pains come upon you, like the pangs of a woman in travail!
24 As I live, says the LORD, if you, Coniah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, are a signet ring on my right hand, I will snatch you from it.
25 I will deliver you into the hands of those who seek your life; the hands of those whom you fear; the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans.
26 I will cast you out, you and the mother who bore you, into a different land from the one you were born in; and there you shall die.
27 Neither of them shall come back to the land for which they yearn.
28 Is this man Coniah a vessel despised, to be broken up, an instrument that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants cast out? why thrown into a land they know not?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD--
30 Thus says the LORD: Write this man down as one childless, who will never thrive in his lifetime! No descendant of his shall achieve a seat on the throne of David as ruler again over Judah.