Jeremiah 29
29
Jeremiah's Letter to the People of Judah in Babylonia
1-2 #
2 K 24.12-16; 2 Ch 36.10. I had been left in Jerusalem when King Nebuchadnezzar#29.1,2 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 21.2. took many of the people of Jerusalem and Judah to Babylonia as prisoners, including King Jehoiachin,#29.1,2 Jehoiachin: Hebrew “Jeconiah” (see the note at 24.1). his mother, his officials, and the metal workers and others in Jerusalem who were skilled in making things. So I wrote a letter to the priests, the prophets, the leaders, and the rest of our people in Babylonia. 3I gave the letter to Elasah and Gemariah,#29.3 Elasah and Gemariah: Hebrew “Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah.” two men that King Zedekiah#29.3 Zedekiah: See the note at 1.3. of Judah was sending to Babylon to talk with Nebuchadnezzar. In the letter, I wrote 4that the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, had said:
I had you taken from Jerusalem to Babylonia. Now I tell you 5to settle there and build houses. Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them. 6Get married and have children, then help your sons find wives and help your daughters find husbands, so they can have children as well. I want your numbers to grow, not to get smaller.
7Pray for peace in Babylonia and work hard to make it prosperous. The more successful that nation is, the better off you will be.
8-9Some of your people there in Babylonia are fortunetellers, and you have asked them to tell you what will happen in the future. But they will only lead you astray with their dreams.#29.8,9 their dreams: Hebrew “your dreams.” And don't let the prophets fool you, either. They speak in my name, but they are liars. I have not spoken to them.
10 #
2 Ch 36.21; Jr 25.11; Dn 9.1,2. After Babylonia has been the strongest nation for 70 years, I will be kind and bring you back to Jerusalem, just as I have promised. 11I will bless you with a future filled with hope—a future of success, not of suffering. 12You will turn back to me and ask for help, and I will answer your prayers. 13#Dt 4.29,30; Ws 6.12,13. You will worship me with all your heart, and I will be with you 14and accept your worship. Then I will gather you from all the nations where I scattered you, and you will return to Jerusalem.
15You feel secure, because you think I have sent prophets to speak for me in Babylonia.
16-19But I have been sending prophets to the people of Judah for a long time, and the king from David's family and the people who are left in Jerusalem and Judah still don't obey me. So I, the Lord All-Powerful, will keep attacking them with war and hunger and disease, until they are as useless as rotten figs. I will force them to leave the land, and all nations will be disgusted and shocked at what happens to them. The nations will sneer and make fun of them and use the names “Judah” and “Jerusalem” as curse words.
And you have not obeyed me, even though 20I had you taken from Jerusalem to Babylonia. But you had better listen to me now. 21-23You think Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah are prophets because they claim to speak for me. But they are lying! I haven't told them anything. They are also committing other horrible sins in your community, such as sleeping with the wives of their friends. So I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar, who will put them to death while the rest of you watch. And in the future, when you want to put a curse on someone, you will say, “I pray that the Lord will kill you in the same way the king of Babylonia burned Zedekiah and Ahab to death!”
A Message for Shemaiah
24-25The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, told me what would happen to Shemaiah,#29.24,25 Shemaiah: Hebrew “Shemaiah, who came from the town of Nehelam.” who was one of our people in Babylonia. After my letter reached Babylonia, Shemaiah wrote letters to the people of Jerusalem, including the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and the other priests. The letter to Zephaniah said:
26After the death of Jehoiada the priest, the Lord chose you to be the priest in charge of the temple security force. You know that anyone who acts crazy and pretends to be a prophet should be arrested and put in chains#29.26 in chains: See the note at 20.2. and iron collars. 27Jeremiah from the town of Anathoth is pretending to be a prophet there in Jerusalem, so why haven't you punished him? 28He even wrote a letter to the people here in Babylonia, saying we would be here a long time. He told us to build homes and to plant gardens and grow our own food.
29When Zephaniah received Shemaiah's letter, he read it to me. 30Then the Lord told me what to write in a second letter 31to the people of Judah who had been taken to Babylonia. In this letter, I wrote that the Lord had said:
I, the Lord, have not chosen Shemaiah to be one of my prophets, and he has misled you by telling lies in my name. 32He has even talked you into disobeying me. So I will punish Shemaiah. He and his descendants won't live to see the good things I will do for my people. I, the Lord, have spoken.
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 29
29
Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles
1This is the text of the letter#2Sm 11:14–15; 1Kg 21:8–11 that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining exiled elders, the priests, the prophets, and all the people Nebuchadnezzar#2Kg 24:11; 25:22; 2Ch 36:6–13 had deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2This was after King Jeconiah,#29:2 = Jehoiachin#Jr 24:1; 27:20; 28:4 the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had left Jerusalem. 3He sent the letter with Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah,#1Ch 6:13 whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The letter stated:
4This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5“Build houses and live in them.#Jr 29:28 Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease.#Gn 17:5–6; 35:10–11 7Pursue the well-being#29:7 Or peace of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf,#Ezr 6:10; 1Tm 2:1–2 for when it thrives, you will thrive.”
8For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you#Jr 27:9 and your diviners deceive you,#Jr 27:15 and don’t listen to the dreams you elicit from them, 9for they are prophesying falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them.”#Jr 5:31; 14:14; 20:6; 23:25–26,32; 27:10,14–16; 29:21,31 This is the Lord’s declaration.
10For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete,#Jr 25:12; Dn 9:2 I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place. 11For I know the plans I have for you”#Ps 33:10; Jr 26:3; 36:3 — this is the Lord’s declaration — “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.#Dt 30:1–10; Jr 3:12 13You will seek me#Dt 4:29; 1Ch 28:9; 2Ch 15:2 and find me when you search for me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you” — this is the Lord’s declaration — “and I will restore your fortunes#29:14 Or will end your captivity#Jb 42:10; Jr 32:44; 49:39; Ezk 16:53; 39:25; Hs 6:11; Zph 2:7 and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you” — this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place from which I deported you.”#Dt 30:3; Jr 30:3
15You have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon!” 16But this is what the Lord says concerning the king sitting on David’s throne#Jr 17:25; 22:2,30; 36:30 and concerning all the people living in this city — that is, concerning your brothers who did not go with you into exile. 17This is what the Lord of Armies says: “I am about to send sword, famine, and plague against them,#Jr 14:12; 21:9; 24:10 and I will make them like rotten figs that are inedible because they are so bad. 18I will pursue them with sword, famine, and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth — a curse and a desolation, an object of scorn and a disgrace among all the nations#Dt 28:37; 2Ch 29:8; 30:7; Jr 5:30; 19:8; 25:9,18; 29:18; 42:18; 44:12,22; 49:17; 50:13; Mc 6:16; Zph 2:15 where I have banished them.#Dt 30:1; Jr 8:3; 16:15 19I will do this because they have not listened to my words” — this is the Lord’s declaration — “the words that I sent to them with my servants the prophets time and time again.#29:19 Lit prophets, rising up early and sending#Jr 7:13,25; 11:7; 25:3; 26:5; 32:33; 35:14–15; 44:4 And you too have not listened.” This is the Lord’s declaration.
20Hear the word of the Lord, all you exiles I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon.#Jr 24:5 21This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and concerning Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, the ones prophesying a lie to you in my name:#Jr 14:14; 29:9 “I am about to hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and he will kill them before your very eyes. 22Based on what happens to them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will create a curse#Is 65:15 that says, ‘May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire! ’ #Dn 3:6 23because they have committed an outrage#Gn 34:7; Dt 22:21; Jos 7:15 in Israel by committing adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have spoken in my name a lie, which I did not command them. I am he who knows, and I am a witness.” This is the Lord’s declaration.
24To Shemaiah the Nehelamite you are to say, 25“This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: You#29:25 Lit Because you in your own name have sent out letters to all the people of Jerusalem, to the priest Zephaniah#Jr 21:1; 37:3; 52:24–27 son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests, saying, 26‘The Lord has appointed you priest in place of the priest Jehoiada to be the chief officer#2Ch 31:13; Jr 20:1 in the temple of the Lord, responsible for every madman#2Kg 9:11; Hs 9:7 who acts like a prophet. You must confine him in the stocks#2Ch 16:10; Jr 20:2 and an iron collar. 27So now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who has been acting like a prophet among you?#Jr 1:1 28For he has sent word to us in Babylon, claiming, “The exile will be long. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat their produce.”’” #Jr 29:5
29The priest Zephaniah read this letter in the hearing of the prophet Jeremiah.
A Message about Shemaiah
30Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 31“Send a message to all the exiles, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and made you trust a lie,#Jr 27:10,14–16; 28:15; 29:9,21,23 32this is what the Lord says: I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. There will not be even one of his descendants living among these people,#Jr 17:6 nor will any ever see the good that I will bring to my people — this is the Lord’s declaration — for he has preached rebellion against the Lord.’”#Jr 28:16
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