Jeremiah 32
32
Killing and Disease Are on Our Doorstep
1-5The Message Jeremiah received from God in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah. It was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was holding Jerusalem under siege. Jeremiah was shut up in jail in the royal palace. Zedekiah, king of Judah, had locked him up, complaining, “How dare you preach, saying, ‘God says, I’m warning you: I will hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will take it over. Zedekiah king of Judah will be handed over to the Chaldeans right along with the city. He will be handed over to the king of Babylon and forced to face the music. He’ll be hauled off to Babylon where he’ll stay until I deal with him. God’s Decree. Fight against the Babylonians all you want—it won’t get you anywhere.’”
6-7Jeremiah said, “God’s Message came to me like this: Prepare yourself! Hanamel, your uncle Shallum’s son, is on his way to see you. He is going to say, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth. You have the legal right to buy it.’
8“And sure enough, just as God had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me while I was in jail and said, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, for you have the legal right to keep it in the family. Buy it. Take it over.’
“That did it. I knew it was God’s Message.
9-12“So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I paid him seventeen silver shekels. I followed all the proper procedures: In the presence of witnesses I wrote out the bill of sale, sealed it, and weighed out the money on the scales. Then I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy that contained the contract and its conditions and also the open copy—and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. All this took place in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who had signed the deed, as the Jews who were at the jail that day looked on.
13-15“Then, in front of all of them, I told Baruch, ‘These are orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Take these documents—both the sealed and the open deeds—and put them for safekeeping in a pottery jar. For God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Life is going to return to normal. Homes and fields and vineyards are again going to be bought in this country.”’
16-19“And then, having handed over the legal documents to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to God, ‘Dear God, my Master, you created earth and sky by your great power—by merely stretching out your arm! There is nothing you can’t do. You’re loyal in your steadfast love to thousands upon thousands—but you also make children live with the fallout from their parents’ sins. Great and powerful God, named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, determined in purpose and relentless in following through, you see everything that men and women do and respond appropriately to the way they live, to the things they do.
20-23“‘You performed signs and wonders in the country of Egypt and continue to do so right into the present, right here in Israel and everywhere else, too. You’ve made a reputation for yourself that doesn’t diminish. You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders—a powerful deliverance!—by merely stretching out your arm. You gave them this land and solemnly promised to their ancestors a bountiful and fertile land. But when they entered the land and took it over, they didn’t listen to you. They didn’t do what you commanded. They wouldn’t listen to a thing you told them. And so you brought this disaster on them.
24-25“‘Oh, look at the siege ramps already set in place to take the city. Killing and starvation and disease are on our doorstep. The Babylonians are attacking! The Word you spoke is coming to pass—it’s daily news! And yet you, God, the Master, even though it is certain that the city will be turned over to the Babylonians, also told me, Buy the field. Pay for it in cash. And make sure there are witnesses.’”
* * *
26-30Then God’s Message came again to Jeremiah: “Stay alert! I am God, the God of everything living. Is there anything I can’t do? So listen to God’s Message: No doubt about it, I’m handing this city over to the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He’ll take it. The attacking Chaldeans will break through and burn the city down: All those houses whose roofs were used as altars for offerings to Baal and the worship of who knows how many other gods provoked me. It isn’t as if this were the first time they had provoked me. The people of Israel and Judah have been doing this for a long time—doing what I hate, making me angry by the way they live.” God’s Decree.
31-35“This city has made me angry from the day they built it, and now I’ve had my fill. I’m destroying it. I can’t stand to look any longer at the wicked lives of the people of Israel and Judah, deliberately making me angry, the whole lot of them—kings and leaders and priests and preachers, in the country and in the city. They’ve turned their backs on me—won’t even look me in the face!—even though I took great pains to teach them how to live. They refused to listen, refused to be taught. Why, they even set up obscene god and goddess statues in the Temple built in my honor—an outrageous desecration! And then they went out and built shrines to the god Baal in the valley of Hinnom, where they burned their children in sacrifice to the god Molech—I can hardly conceive of such evil!—turning the whole country into one huge act of sin.
* * *
36“But there is also this Message from me, the God of Israel, to this city of which you have said, ‘In killing and starvation and disease this city will be delivered up to the king of Babylon’:
37-40“‘Watch for this! I will collect them from all the countries to which I will have driven them in my anger and rage and indignation. Yes, I’ll bring them all back to this place and let them live here in peace. They will be my people, I will be their God. I’ll make them of one mind and heart, always honoring me, so that they can live good and whole lives, they and their children after them. What’s more, I’ll make a covenant with them that will last forever, a covenant to stick with them no matter what, and work for their good. I’ll fill their hearts with a deep respect for me so they’ll not even think of turning away from me.
41“‘Oh how I’ll rejoice in them! Oh how I’ll delight in doing good things for them! Heart and soul, I’ll plant them in this country and keep them here!’
42-44“Yes, this is God’s Message: ‘I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise. Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate—gone to the dogs, unlivable, wrecked by the Babylonians. Yes, people will buy farms again, and legally, with deeds of purchase, sealed documents, proper witnesses—and right here in the territory of Benjamin, and in the area around Jerusalem, around the villages of Judah and the hill country, the Shephelah and the Negev. I will restore everything that was lost.’ God’s Decree.”
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Jeremiah 32: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Jeremiah 32
32
Why Jeremiah Bought Property
1The word that came to Jeremiah from Adonai, in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.
2Now at the time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah.
3For King Zedekiah of Judah had shut him up, saying: “Why do you prophesy and say, thus says Adonai: ‘I will soon give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it;
4and King Zedekiah of Judah will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth and his eyes will behold his eyes;
5and he will lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there will he remain until I take note of him,’ says Adonai—though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not succeed?”
6So Jeremiah said: “The word of Adonai came to me, saying:
7‘Hanamel, son of Shallum your uncle, will soon come to you saying: ‘Buy for yourself my field in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.’”
8So my uncle’s son Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard as was the word of Adonai, and said to me: “Buy my field, please, which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of Adonai.
9So I bought the field that was in Anathoth from the son of my uncle Hanamel, and weighed him the money—seventeen shekels of silver.
10I signed and sealed the deed, called in witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales.
11Then I took the purchase deed, both the sealed copy, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy,
12and I gave the purchase deed to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my uncle’s son Hanamel and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the purchase deed, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the guard.
13Then I charged Baruch before them, saying,
14thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel, “Take these deeds—this purchase deed, both the sealed copy and the open copy—and put them in a clay jar, so they may last many days.”
15For thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel: “Houses and fields and vineyards will yet again be bought in this land.”
16After I had given the purchase deed to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to Adonai, saying:
17“Ah, my Lord Adonai! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm—nothing is too hard for You!
18You are the One doing mercy to thousands, but repaying the iniquity of the fathers into the lap of their children after them. Great, mighty God, Adonai-Tzva’ot is His Name!
19Great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.
20You set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day in Israel and among mankind, and made Yourself a Name, as to this day.
21You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.
22You gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
23They came in and possessed it. But they did not obey your voice nor walk in your Torah. They have done nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you caused all this evil to fall on them.
24Look, the siege ramps have just come up to the city to take it. The city has been handed over to the Chaldeans fighting against it, because of the sword, the famine and the pestilence. What You have spoken has happened. Here it is, You see it.
25Yet You said to me, my Lord Adonai: ‘Buy for yourself the field for money and call in witnesses’—even as the city is handed over to the Chaldeans.”
26Then came the word of Adonai to Jeremiah, saying:
27“Behold, I am Adonai, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?”
28Therefore thus says Adonai: “I am about to give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it.
29Then the Chaldeans fighting against this city will come and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses—where they burned incense to Baal on their roofs and poured out drink-offerings to other gods, to provoke Me.
30For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil in My sight from their youth; indeed, the children of Israel have done nothing but provoke Me with the work of their hands,” declares Adonai.
31“Indeed this city has caused My anger and of My fury from the day that they built it up to this day, so that I will remove it from before My face,
32because of all the evil the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done to provoke Me—they, their kings, their princes, their kohanim, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
33“They have turned their back to Me and not their face. Though I taught them early and often, they have not listened to receive instruction.
34Instead they set up their abominations in the House where My Name is called, to defile it.
35They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to make their sons and their daughters pass through fire to Molech—something I never commanded them, nor did it enter My mind that they would do this loathsome thing, causing Judah to sin.”
36Now therefore thus says Adonai, the God of Israel, concerning this city, about which you say, “It is handed over to the king of Babylon by the sword, famine, and pestilence.
37“See, I will gather them out of all the countries, where I have driven them in My anger, My fury, and great wrath, and I will bring them back to this place and cause them to dwell securely.
38They will be My people, and I will be their God.
39I will give them one heart and one way, so they may fear Me forever; for their good and for their children after them.
40I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good for them. I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from Me.
41“Yes, I will delight in doing good for them, and with all My heart and all My soul I will in truth plant them in this land.”
42For thus says Adonai: “Just as I have brought all this great evil on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.
43So fields will be bought in this land, about which you are saying: ‘It will be a desolation, without man or beast; it is handed over to the Chaldeans.’
44Men will buy fields for money and sign and seal the deeds and call witnesses in the land of Benjamin and in the areas around Jerusalem, and in the towns of Judah, in the towns of the hill-country, in the towns of the foothills, and in the cities of the South—because I will bring them back from exile.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
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