Jeremiah 25:1-14

This is the message that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah. It came in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah and the first year Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon. This is the message Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and Jerusalem: The LORD has spoken his word to me again and again for these past twenty-three years. I have been a prophet since the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah. I have spoken messages from the LORD to you from that time until today, but you have not listened. The LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you over and over again, but you have not listened or paid any attention to them. Those prophets have said, “Stop your evil ways. Stop doing what is wrong so you can stay in the land that the LORD gave to you and your ancestors to live in forever. Don’t follow other gods to serve them or to worship them. Don’t make me, the LORD, angry by worshiping idols that are the work of your own hands, or I will punish you.” “But you people of Judah did not listen to me,” says the LORD. “You made me angry by worshiping idols that were the work of your own hands, so I punished you.” So this is what the LORD All-Powerful says: “Since you have not listened to my messages, I will send for all the peoples of the north,” says the LORD, “along with my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I will bring them all against Judah, those who live there, and all the nations around you, too. I will completely destroy all those countries and leave them in ruins forever. People will be shocked when they see how badly I have destroyed those countries. I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and happiness, the sounds of brides and bridegrooms, and the sound of people grinding meal. And I will take away the light of the lamp. That whole area will be an empty desert, and these nations will be slaves of the king of Babylon for seventy years. “But when the seventy years have passed, I will punish the king of Babylon and his entire nation for their evil,” says the LORD. “I will make that land a desert forever. I will make happen all the terrible things I said about Babylonia—everything Jeremiah prophesied about all those foreign nations, the warnings written in this book. Even the Babylonians will have to serve many nations and many great kings. I will give them the punishment they deserve for all their own hands have done.”