Jeremiah's Message to Johanan

421 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, 2 and said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray you, our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do see us: 3 that Yahweh your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do. 4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray to Yahweh your God according to your words; and it shall happen that whatever thing Yahweh shall answer you, I will declare it to you; I will keep nothing back from you. 5 Then they said to Jeremiah, Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God shall send you to us. 6 Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.

7 It happened after ten days, that the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. 8 Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, 9 and said to them, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him: 10 If you will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. 11 Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; don’t be afraid of him, says Yahweh: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. 12 I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land. 13 But if you say, We will not dwell in this land; so that you don’t obey the voice of Yahweh your God, 14 saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: 15 now therefore hear the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah: Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; 16 then it shall happen, that the sword, which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Egypt; and there you shall die. 17 So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there: they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them. 18 For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: As my anger and my wrath has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my wrath be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Egypt; and you shall be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more. 19 Yahweh has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, Don’t you go into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified to you this day. 20 For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God shall say, so declare to us, and we will do it: 21 and I have this day declared it to you; but you have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God in anything for which he has sent me to you. 22 Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place where you desire to go to sojourn there.

31 They say, If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and become another man’s, will he return to her again? Won’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me, says Yahweh. 2 Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? By the ways have you sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness. 3 Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; yet you have a prostitute’s forehead, you refused to be ashamed. 4 Will you not from this time cry to me, My Father, you are the guide of my youth? 5 Will he retain his anger forever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.

Israel and Judah Entreated to Repent

6 Moreover Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? she is gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the prostitute. 7 I said after she had done all these things, She will return to me; but she didn’t return: and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, didn’t fear; but she also went and played the prostitute. 9 It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks. 10 Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says Yahweh. 11 Yahweh said to me, Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

12 Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, you backsliding Israel, says Yahweh; I will not look in anger on you; for I am merciful, says Yahweh, I will not keep anger forever. 13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says Yahweh. 14 Return, backsliding children, says Yahweh; for I am a husband to you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: 15 and I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16 It shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says Yahweh, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of Yahweh; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more. 17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Yahweh; and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of Yahweh, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. 18 In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers. 19 But I said, How I would put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations! and I said, You shall call me My Father, and shall not turn away from following me.

20 Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel, says Yahweh. 21 A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God. 22 Return, you backsliding children, I will heal your backsliding.

“Behold, we have come to you; for you are Yahweh our God.” 23 Truly in vain is the help that is looked for from the hills, the tumult on the mountains: truly in Yahweh our God is the salvation of Israel. 24 But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have sinned against Yahweh our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh our God.