Study Desk

Instead, you will call me the Living God who rescued you from that country in the north and from the other countries where I had forced you to go. Someday I will bring you back to this land that I gave your ancestors.

Then the Lord replied, "That's why I will teach them about my power, and they will know that I am the true God."

I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, and you kings of Judah and you people of Jerusalem had better pay attention. I am going to bring so much trouble on this valley that everyone who hears about it will be shocked.

"Listen, everyone! Some time ago, the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, warned you that he would bring disaster on Jerusalem and all nearby villages. But you were stubborn and refused to listen. Now the Lord is going to bring the disaster he promised."

I told them that the Lord God of Israel had told me to say to King Zedekiah: The Babylonians have surrounded Jerusalem and want to kill you and your people. You are asking me to save you, but you have made me furious. So I will stretch out my mighty arm and fight against you myself. Your army is using spears and swords to fight the Babylonians, but I will make your own weapons turn and attack you. I will send a horrible disease to kill many of the people and animals in Jerusalem, and there will be nothing left to eat. Finally, I will let King Nebuchadnezzar and his army fight their way to the center of Jerusalem and capture everyone who is left alive, including you and your officials. But Nebuchadnezzar won't be kind or show any mercy—he will have you killed! I, the Lord , have spoken.

Others will answer, "It's because the people worshiped foreign gods and broke the agreement that the Lord their God had made with them."

A time will come when you will again worship me. But you will no longer call me the Living God who rescued Israel from Egypt.

Instead, you will call me the Living God who rescued you from the land in the north and from all the other countries where I had forced you to go. And you will once again live in your own land.

Those unfaithful prophets misuse their power all over the country. So God turned the pasturelands into scorching deserts.

It seems that you each have your own news! So if you say, "Here is news from the Lord ," you are twisting my words into a lie. Remember that I am your God, the Lord All-Powerful.

I will give them a desire to know me and to be my people. They will want me to be their God, and they will turn back to me with all their heart.

The Lord God of Israel showed me a vision in which he said, "Jeremiah, here is a cup filled with the wine of my anger. Take it and make every nation drink some.

The Lord had said to tell each king, "The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, commands you to drink from this cup that is full of the wine of his anger. It will make you so drunk that you will vomit. And when the Lord sends war against the nations, you will be completely defeated."

The judges and the other people told the priests and prophets, "Since Jeremiah only told us what the Lord our God had said, we don't think he deserves to die."

So have them tell their kings that I have said: I am the All-Powerful Lord God of Israel,

You might have people in your kingdom who claim they can tell the future by magic or by talking with the dead or by dreams or messages from a god. But don't pay attention if any of them tell you not to obey Nebuchadnezzar.

After all, when Nebuchadnezzar took King Jehoiachin to Babylonia as a prisoner, he didn't take everything of value from Jerusalem. He left the bronze pillars, the huge bronze bowl called the Sea, and the movable bronze stands in the temple, and he left a lot of other valuable things in the palace and in the rest of Jerusalem. But now I, the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, say that all these things

he told me that the Lord had said: I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, and I will smash the yoke that Nebuchadnezzar put on the necks of the nations to make them his slaves.

to go back and say to Hananiah: I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel. You smashed a wooden yoke, but I will replace it with one made of iron. I will put iron yokes on all the nations, and they will have to do what King Nebuchadnezzar commands. I will even let him rule the wild animals.

that the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, had said: I had you taken from Jerusalem to Babylonia. Now I tell you