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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Jeremiah 29
29
1Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, 2(after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem), 3by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon). It said:
4Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5“Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. 7Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to Yahweh for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” 8For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you. Don’t listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them,” says Yahweh. 10For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. 12You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”
15Because you have said, “Yahweh has raised us up prophets in Babylon,” 16Yahweh says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who haven’t gone with you into captivity, 17Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad. 18I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19because they have not listened to my words,” says Yahweh, “with which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear,” says Yahweh.
20Hear therefore Yahweh’s word, all you captives whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: “Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he will kill them before your eyes. 22A curse will be taken up about them by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, ‘Yahweh make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire;’ 23because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t command them. I am he who knows, and am witness,” says Yahweh.
24Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, 25“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, 26“Yahweh has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in Yahweh’s house, for every man who is crazy and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles. 27Now therefore, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who makes himself a prophet to you, 28because he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long. Build houses, and dwell in them. Plant gardens, and eat their fruit?”’”
29Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet. 30Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, 31“Send to all of the captives, saying, ‘Yahweh says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: “Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I didn’t send him, and he has caused you to trust in a lie,” 32therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his offspring. He will not have a man to dwell among this people. He won’t see the good that I will do to my people,” says Yahweh, “because he has spoken rebellion against Yahweh.”’”
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