Study Desk

So I took the cup of anger from the Lord and made all the nations drink from it—every nation to which the Lord sent me.

But did King Hezekiah and the people kill him for saying this? No, they turned from their sins and worshiped the Lord . They begged him for mercy. Then the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had pronounced against them. So we are about to do ourselves great harm."

So you must submit to Babylon's king and serve him; put your neck under Babylon's yoke! I will punish any nation that refuses to be his slave, says the Lord . I will send war, famine, and disease upon that nation until Babylon has conquered it.

This is what the Lord says: ‘I have not sent these prophets! They are telling you lies in my name, so I will drive you from this land. You will all die—you and all these prophets, too.'"

So a prophet who predicts peace must show he is right. Only when his predictions come true can we know that he is really from the Lord ."

Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away!

Their terrible fate will become proverbial, so that the Judean exiles will curse someone by saying, ‘May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned alive!'

So why have you done nothing to stop Jeremiah from Anathoth, who pretends to be a prophet among you?

"So do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant; do not be dismayed, Israel," says the Lord . "For I will bring you home again from distant lands, and your children will return from their exile. Israel will return to a life of peace and quiet, and no one will terrorize them.

This is what the Lord says: "Just as the heavens cannot be measured and the foundations of the earth cannot be explored, so I will not consider casting them away for the evil they have done. I, the Lord , have spoken!

Then, just as the Lord had said he would, my cousin Hanamel came and visited me in the prison. He said, "Please buy my field at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. By law you have the right to buy it before it is offered to anyone else, so buy it for yourself." Then I knew that the message I had heard was from the Lord .

So I bought the field at Anathoth, paying Hanamel seventeen pieces of silver for it.

"From the time this city was built until now, it has done nothing but anger me, so I am determined to get rid of it.

They have built pagan shrines to Baal in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing. What an incredible evil, causing Judah to sin so greatly!

"This is what the Lord says: Just as I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have promised them.

"This is what the Lord says: If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that one does not follow the other,

And as the stars of the sky cannot be counted and the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of my servant David and the Levites who minister before me."

So Jeremiah the prophet delivered the message to King Zedekiah of Judah.

So the Lord gave them this message through Jeremiah:

So I went to see Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah and grandson of Habazziniah and all his brothers and sons—representing all the Recabite families.