Chronological Plan

¹Now in the seventh month Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family and one of the chief officers of the king, along with ten men, came to Mizpah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. While they were eating bread together there in Mizpah,

²Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him rose up, and struck and killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword and put to death the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.

³Ishmael also struck and killed all the Jews who were with him, that is with Gedaliah in Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war.

⁴Now it happened on the next day after the killing of Gedaliah, when no one knew about it,

⁵that eighty men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria with their beards shaved off, their clothes torn, and their bodies gashed, having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of the LORD.

⁶Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah left Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went; and as he met them, he said to them, “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam!”

⁷Yet it turned out that as soon as they came inside the city, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw them into the cistern.

⁸But ten men who were found among them said to Ishmael, “Do not put us to death, for we have supplies of wheat, barley, oil, and honey hidden in the field.” So he refrained and did not put them to death along with their companions.

⁹Now as for the cistern where Ishmael had thrown all the bodies of the men whom he had struck and killed because of Gedaliah, it was the one that King Asa had constructed on account of Baasha, king of Israel; Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with the dead.

¹⁰Then Ishmael took captive all the remnant of the people who were in Mizpah, the king’s daughters and all the people who were left in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had put in the custody of Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah took them captive and proceeded to cross over to the sons of Ammon.

¹¹But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him heard about all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done.

¹²So they took all the men and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and they found him by the large pool that is in Gibeon.

¹³Now as soon as all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him, they were joyful.

¹⁴So all the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah turned around and came back, and went to Johanan the son of Kareah.

¹⁵But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the sons of Ammon.

¹⁶Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him took from Mizpah all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, after he had struck and killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, that is, the men who were soldiers, the women, the children, and the high officials, whom he had brought back from Gibeon.

¹⁷And they went and stayed in Geruth Chimham, which is beside Bethlehem, in order to proceed into Egypt

¹⁸because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, since Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had struck and killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.

¹Then all the commanders of the forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the small to the great approached

²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our pleading come before you, and pray for us to the LORD your God for all this remnant—since we have been left only a few out of many, just as your own eyes now see us—

³that the LORD your God will tell us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do.”

⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to the LORD your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole message which the LORD gives you as an answer. I will not withhold a word from you.”

⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the LORD your God will send you to us.

⁶Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well for us when we listen to the voice of the LORD our God.”

⁷Now at the end of ten days the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.

⁸Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him, and for all the people from the small to the great,

⁹and said to them, “This is what the LORD says, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your plea before Him:

¹⁰‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent of the disaster that I have inflicted on you.

¹¹Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I am with you to save you and rescue you from his hand.

¹²I will also show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own soil.

¹³But if you are going to say, “We will not stay in this land,” so as not to listen to the voice of the LORD your God,

¹⁴saying, “No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, or hear the sound of a trumpet, or hunger for bread, and we will stay there”;

¹⁵then in that case listen to the word of the LORD, you remnant of Judah. This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “If you really set your minds to enter Egypt and go in to reside there,

¹⁶then the sword, of which you are afraid, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there.

¹⁷So all the people who set their minds to go to Egypt to reside there will die by the sword, by famine, or by plague; and they will have no refugees or survivors from the disaster that I am going to bring on them.” ’ ”

¹⁸For this is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “As My anger and wrath have gushed out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will gush out on you when you enter Egypt. And you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a disgrace; and you will not see this place again.”

¹⁹The LORD has spoken to you, you remnant of Judah, “Do not go to Egypt!” You know for certain that I have admonished you today.

²⁰For you have only deceived yourselves; for it is you who sent me to the LORD your God, saying, “Pray for us to the LORD our God; and whatever the LORD our God says, tell us so, and we will do it.”

²¹So I have told you today, but you have not obeyed the LORD your God in whatever He has sent me to tell you.

²²And now you shall know for certain that you will die by the sword, by famine, or by plague in the place where you desire to go to reside.

¹But as soon as Jeremiah, whom the LORD their God had sent to them, had finished telling all the people all the words of the LORD their God—that is, all these words—

²Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to reside there’;

³but Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us in order to hand us over to the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon!”

⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces, and all the people, did not obey the voice of the LORD to stay in the land of Judah.

⁵Instead, Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took the entire remnant of Judah who had returned from all the nations to which they had been scattered, in order to reside in the land of Judah—

⁶the men, the women, the children, the king’s daughters, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, together with Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah—

⁷and they entered the land of Egypt (for they did not obey the voice of the LORD) and went in as far as Tahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,

⁹“Take some large stones in your hands and hide them in the mortar in the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of some of the Jews;

¹⁰and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I am going to send men and get My servant Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and I am going to set his throne over these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his canopy over them.

¹¹He will also come and strike the land of Egypt; those who are meant for death will be given over to death, and those for captivity to captivity, and those for the sword to the sword.

¹²And I shall set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive. So he will wrap himself with the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself with his garment, and he will depart from there safely.

¹³He will also smash to pieces the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt; and the temples of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire.” ’ ”

¹The word that came to Jeremiah for all the Jews living in the land of Egypt, those who were living in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and the land of Pathros, saying,

²“This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘You yourselves have seen all the disaster that I have brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah; and behold, this day they are in ruins and no one lives in them,

³because of their wickedness which they committed to provoke Me to anger by continuing to burn sacrifices and to serve other gods whom they had not known, neither they, you, nor your fathers.

⁴Yet I sent you all My servants the prophets again and again, saying, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing which I hate.”

⁵But they did not listen or incline their ears to turn from their wickedness, so as not to burn sacrifices to other gods.

⁶Therefore My wrath and My anger gushed out and burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so they have become ruins and a desolation as it is this day.

⁷Now then, this is what the LORD God of armies, the God of Israel says: “Why are you doing great harm to yourselves, to eliminate from yourselves man and woman, child and infant from among Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant,

⁸provoking Me to anger with the works of your hands, burning sacrifices to other gods in the land of Egypt where you are entering to reside, so that you may be eliminated and become a curse and a disgrace among all the nations of the earth?

⁹Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah and the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness and the wickedness of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁰Yet they have not become contrite even to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in My Law or My statutes, which I placed before you and before your fathers.” ’

¹¹“Therefore this is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘Behold, I am going to set My face against you for a disaster, even to eliminate all Judah.

¹²And I will take away the remnant of Judah who have set their minds on entering the land of Egypt to reside there, and they will all meet their end in the land of Egypt; they will fall by the sword or meet their end by famine. From the small to the great, they will die by the sword and famine; and they will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a disgrace.

¹³And I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt, just as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with plague.

¹⁴So there will be no survivor or refugee for the remnant of Judah who have entered the land of Egypt to reside there and then to return to the land of Judah, to which they are longing to return to live; for none will return except a few refugees.’ ”

¹⁵Then all the men who were aware that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, responded to Jeremiah, saying,

¹⁶“As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you!

¹⁷But we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings, and our leaders did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune.

¹⁸But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything, and have met our end by the sword and by famine.”

¹⁹“And,” said the women, “when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image, and poured out drink offerings to her?”

²⁰Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women—even to all the people who were giving him such an answer—saying,

²¹“As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your leaders, and the people of the land, did the LORD not remember them, and did all of this not come into His mind?

²²So the LORD was no longer able to endure it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have committed; so your land has become a place of ruins, an object of horror, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as it is this day.

²³Since you have burned sacrifices and have sinned against the LORD and not obeyed the voice of the LORD nor walked in His Law, His statutes, or His testimonies, therefore this disaster has happened to you, as it has this day.”

²⁴Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt!

²⁵This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying, “We will certainly perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” By all means fulfill your vows, and be sure to perform your vows!’

²⁶In return, hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who are living in the land of Egypt: ‘Behold, I have sworn by My great name,’ says the LORD, ‘that My name shall never be invoked again by the mouth of anyone of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “As the Lord GOD lives.”

²⁷Behold, I am watching over them for harm and not for good, and all the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will meet their end by the sword or by famine until they are completely gone.

²⁸Those who escape the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number. Then all the remnant of Judah who have gone to the land of Egypt to reside there will know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs.

²⁹And this will be the sign to you,’ declares the LORD, ‘that I am going to punish you in this place, so that you may know that My words will assuredly stand against you for harm.’

³⁰This is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am going to hand Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt over to his enemies, to those who seek his life, just as I handed Zedekiah king of Judah over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and was seeking his life.’ ”

¹This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at Jeremiah’s dictation, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying:

²“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says to you, Baruch:

³‘You said, “Oh, woe to me! For the LORD has added grief to my pain; I am weary with my groaning and have found no rest.” ’

⁴This is what you are to say to him: ‘This is what the LORD says: “Behold, what I have built I am going to tear down, and what I have planted I am going to uproot, that is, all the people of the land.”

⁵But as for you, are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am going to bring disaster on all flesh,’ declares the LORD, ‘but I will give your life to you as plunder in all the places where you may go.’ ”