Jeremiah 32:1-15

Jeremiah Buys a Field at Anathoth

32¹ The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. ² Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was round Jerusalem, shutting it in: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, in the house of the king of Judah. ³ For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had had him shut up, saying, Why have you, as a prophet, been saying, The Lord has said, See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; ⁴ And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not get away from the hands of the Chaldaeans, but will certainly be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will have talk with him, mouth to mouth, and see him, eye to eye. ⁵ And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he will be till I have pity on him, says the Lord: though you are fighting with the Chaldaeans, things will not go well for you? ⁶ And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁷ See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's brother, will come to you and say, Give the price and get for yourself my property in Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest relation. ⁸ So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me, as the Lord had said, to the place of the armed watchmen, and said to me, Give the price and get my property which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's right to the heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was clear to me that this was the word of the Lord. ⁹ So I got for a price the property in Anathoth from Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and gave him the money, seventeen shekels of silver; ¹⁰ And I put it in writing, stamping it with my stamp, and I took witnesses and put the money into the scales. ¹¹ So I took the paper witnessing the business, one copy rolled up and stamped, and one copy open: ¹² And I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and of the witnesses who had put their names to the paper, and before all the Jews who were seated in the place of the armed watchmen. ¹³ And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying, ¹⁴ This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take these papers, the witness of this business, the one which is rolled up and stamped, and the one which is open; and put them in a vessel of earth so that they may be kept for a long time. ¹⁵ For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, There will again be trading in houses and fields and vine-gardens in this land.