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 Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exiles, 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, # = 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. 3The letter was sent by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah # 1Ch 6:13 whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter stated:
4This is what the Lord of Hosts, 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. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take 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 7Seek the welfare 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 has prosperity, you will prosper.”
8For this is what the Lord of Hosts, 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 70 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 welfare, 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 # 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 I deported you from.” # 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 Hosts says: “I am about to send against them sword, famine, and plague # Jr 14:12; 21:9; 24:10 and 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 — “that I sent to them with My servants the prophets time and time again. # 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 Hosts, the God of Israel, says to Ahab son of Kolaiah and to 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 Nebuchadnezzar king 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 a lie in My name, 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 Hosts, the God of Israel, says: You # 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 Jehoiada the priest 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
29Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.
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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Jeremiah 29: HCSB
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© 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 29
29
Jeremiah's Letter to the Exiles in Babylon
1These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. 3The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: 4Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,#29.8 Cn: Heb your dreams that you cause to dream 9for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.
10For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
15Because you have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,”— 16Thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who live in this city, your kinsfolk who did not go out with you into exile: 17Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am going to let loose on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of cursing, and horror, and hissing, and a derision among all the nations where I have driven them, 19because they did not heed my words, says the Lord, when I persistently sent to you my servants the prophets, but they#29.19 Syr: Heb you would not listen, says the Lord. 20But now, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon, hear the word of the Lord: 21Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: I am going to deliver them into the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he shall kill them before your eyes. 22And on account of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” 23because they have perpetrated outrage in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them; I am the one who knows and bears witness, says the Lord.
The Letter of Shemaiah
24To Shemaiah of Nehelam you shall say: 25Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: In your own name you sent a letter to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests, saying, 26The Lord himself has made you priest instead of the priest Jehoiada, so that there may be officers in the house of the Lord to control any madman who plays the prophet, to put him in the stocks and the collar. 27So now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who plays the prophet for you? 28For he has actually sent to us in Babylon, saying, “It will be a long time; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat what they produce.”
29The priest Zephaniah read this letter in the hearing of the prophet Jeremiah. 30Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 31Send to all the exiles, saying, Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah of Nehelam: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and has led you to trust in a lie, 32therefore thus says the Lord: I am going to punish Shemaiah of Nehelam and his descendants; he shall not have anyone living among this people to see#29.32 Gk: Heb and he shall not see the good that I am going to do to my people, says the Lord, for he has spoken rebellion against the Lord.
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New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.