Study Desk

All those nations who were your friends have forgotten you. They don't care about you. I have hurt you as an enemy would. I punished you very hard, because your guilt was so great and your sins were so many.

People in those places will sing songs of praise. There will be the sound of laughter. I will give them many children so their number will not be small. I will bring honor to them so no one will look down on them.

"So you will be my people, and I will be your God."

So there is hope for you in the future," says the Lord . "Your children will return to their own land.

"I have heard Israel moaning: ‘ Lord , you punished me, and I have learned my lesson. I was like a calf that had never been trained. Take me back so that I may come back. You truly are the Lord my God.

The Lord makes the sun shine in the day and the moon and stars to shine at night. He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore. The Lord All-Powerful is his name. This is what the Lord says:

Your cousin Hanamel, son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you soon. Hanamel will say to you, ‘Jeremiah, you are my nearest relative, so buy my field near the town of Anathoth. It is your right and your duty to buy that field.'

"Then it happened just as the Lord had said. My cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said to me, ‘Buy for yourself my field near Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. It is your right and duty to buy it and own it.' So I knew this was a message from the Lord .

‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Take both copies of the record of ownership—the sealed copy and the copy that was not sealed—and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time.

You did miracles and wonderful things in the land of Egypt. You have continued doing them in Israel and among the other nations even until today. So you have become well known.

They came into this land and took it for their own, but they did not obey you or follow your teachings. They did not do everything you commanded. So you made all these terrible things happen to them.

So this is what the Lord says: I will soon hand over the city of Jerusalem to the Babylonian army and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it.

"From the day Jerusalem was built until now, this city has made me angry, so angry that I must remove it from my sight.

They put their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped, so they made it unclean.

In the Valley of Ben Hinnom they built places to worship Baal so they could burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to Molech. But I never commanded them to do such a hateful thing. It never entered my mind that they would do such a thing and cause Judah to sin.

"I will make an agreement with them that will last forever. I will never turn away from them; I will always do good to them. I will make them want to respect me so they will never turn away from me.

You will die in a peaceful way. As people made funeral fires to honor your ancestors, the kings who ruled before you, so people will make a funeral fire to honor you. They will cry for you and sadly say, "Ah, master!" I myself make this promise to you, says the Lord .'"

So Jeremiah the prophet gave this message to Zedekiah in Jerusalem.

All the officers and all the people accepted this agreement; they agreed to free their male and female slaves and no longer keep them as slaves. So all the slaves were set free.

But after that, the people who had slaves changed their minds. So they took back the people they had set free and made them slaves again.