CHAPTER 27

¹At the beginning of the kingship of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: ²Thus said the LORD, “Make for yourself bands and yoke bars, and you shall put them on your neck. ³And you shall send them to the king of Edom and to the king of Moab and to the king of the Ammonites and to the king of Tyre and to the king of Sidon in the hand of the messengers coming to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. ⁴And you shall charge them to their masters, saying, Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, thus shall you say to your masters: ⁵I Myself made the earth, humankind and beast, over the face of the earth, with My great power and with My outstretched arm, for him who was right in My eyes. ⁶And now, I Myself have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar My servant, king of Babylonia, and even the beasts of the field I have given to him to serve him. ⁷And all the nations shall serve him and his son and his son’s son until the time of his land comes—he, too—and many nations and great kings shall make him serve. ⁸And it shall be, that the nation and the kingdom that does not serve him, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and that does not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylonia, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence will I reckon with that nation, said the LORD, until I make an end of them by his hand. ⁹As for you, do not listen to your prophets and to your sorcerers and to your dreams and to your soothsayers and to your wizards who say to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylonia.’ ¹⁰For lies do they prophesy to you so as to take you far from your land, for I will scatter you and you shall perish. ¹¹And the nation that puts its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylonia and serves him I will leave on its land, said the LORD, and it will till it and dwell upon it.” ¹²And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke according to these words, saying, “Bring your neck into the yoke of the king of Babylonia and serve him and his people, and live. ¹³Why should you die, you and your people, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, as the LORD has spoken of the nation that does not serve the king of Babylonia? ¹⁴And do not listen to the words of the prophets who say to you, saying: ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylonia,’ for lies do they prophesy to you. ¹⁵For I have not sent them, said the LORD, and they prophesy lies in My name, so that I will scatter you and you shall perish, you and the prophets who prophesy to you. ¹⁶And to the priests and to all the people I have spoken, saying, Thus said the LORD: do not listen to your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, the vessels of the house of the LORD are now soon to be brought back from Babylonia,’ for lies do they prophesy to you. ¹⁷Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylonia and live. Why should this city become a ruin? ¹⁸And if they are prophets, and if the word of the LORD is with them, let them entreat, pray, the LORD of Armies that the vessels remaining in the house of the LORD and in the house of Judah not come to Babylonia. ¹⁹For thus said the LORD of Armies concerning the pillars and the basins and the stands and concerning the rest of the vessels remaining in this city, ²⁰which Nebuchadrezzar did not take when he exiled Jeconiah king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babel with all the aristocrats of Judah and Jerusalem. ²¹For thus said the LORD of Armies God of Israel concerning the vessels remaining in the house of the LORD and in the house of the king of Judah and Jerusalem: ²²To Babylonia shall they be brought, and there shall they be until the day I attend to them and bring them up and return them to this place.”