Study Desk

then My agreement may also be broken with David My servant, that he will not have a son to rule on his throne. And then My agreement may be broken with My servants, the Levite religious leaders.

then I will turn away from the children of Jacob and David My servant. Then I will not choose one of his children to rule over the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will bring them back to their land and will have loving-pity on them.'"

This is the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the nations of the earth that were under his rule, and all the people, were fighting against Jerusalem and all its cities:

And you will not get away from him. You will be taken and given into his hand. You will see the king of Babylon eye to eye, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon.'"'

And all the leaders and all the people obeyed, who had joined in the agreement that every man should set his male and female servants free. No one was to keep them working any longer for him. So they obeyed and set them free.

"At the end of seven years each of you must set free his Hebrew brother, who has been sold to you and has served you for six years. You must send him away from you as a free man." But your fathers did not obey Me, or listen to Me.

Not long ago you had turned and done what is right in My eyes. Each man told his neighbor that he was free. And you had made an agreement before Me in the house which is called by My name.

Yet you turned and sinned against My name. Each man took back his male and female servant whom you had set free to go where they wished. And you brought them under your power again to be your male and female servants.'

"So the Lord says, ‘You have not obeyed Me. Each man has not set his brother or his neighbor free. So I am letting you free,' says the Lord, ‘free to fall by the sword, by disease, and by hunger. I will cause you to be hated and feared by all the nations of the earth.

I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his captains over to those who hate them and to those who want to kill them. I will give them to the army of the king of Babylon which has left from you.

So I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons, and all those of the Rechabite family.

"The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, telling his sons not to drink wine, are obeyed. They do not drink wine to this day, for they have obeyed their father. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not listened to Me.

It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the trouble I am planning to bring on them, so that everyone will turn from his sinful way. Then I will forgive their wrong-doing and their sin."

It may be that their prayer will come before the Lord, and everyone will turn from his sinful way. For the punishment that the Lord said would come to these people because of His anger is very bad."

Then all the leaders sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, "Take the book you have read to the people, and come." So Baruch the son of Neriah took the book in his hand and went to them.

The king and all his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, and they did not tear their clothes.

So this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: "He will have no one to sit on the throne of David. And his dead body will be thrown out to the heat of the day and the cold of the night.

I will punish him and his children and his servants for their sin. And I will bring on them and the people of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the trouble that I have said would come to them, because they would not listen."'"

But he and his servants and the people of the land would not listen to what the Lord said through Jeremiah the man of God.

And so Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to take his land there among the people.