Jeremiah's Warning to Zedekiah

341 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth which were under his rule, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns, saying, 2 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Go and say to Zedekiah, king of Judah, This is what the Lord has said: See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will have it burned with fire: 3 And you will not get away from him, but will certainly be taken and given up into his hands; and you will see the king of Babylon, eye to eye, and he will have talk with you, mouth to mouth, and you will go to Babylon. 4 But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah; this is what the Lord has said about you: Death will not come to you by the sword: 5 You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings as they made for your fathers, the earlier kings before you, will be made for you; and they will be weeping for you and saying, Ah lord! for I have said the word, says the Lord. 6 Then Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem, 7 When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the towns of Judah which had not been taken, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the last of the walled towns of Judah.

The Broken Covenant concerning Hebrew Servants

8 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made an agreement with all the people in Jerusalem, to give news in public that servants were to be made free; 9 That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant: 10 And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go. 11 But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls. 12 For this reason the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 13 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I made an agreement with your fathers on the day when I took them out of Egypt, out of the prison-house, saying, 14 At the end of seven years every man is to let go his countryman who is a Hebrew, who has become yours for a price and has been your servant for six years; you are to let him go free: but your fathers gave no attention and did not give ear. 15 And now, turning away from evil, you had done what is right in my eyes, giving a public undertaking for every man to make his neighbour free; and you had made an agreement before me in the house which is named by my name: 16 But again you have put shame on my name, and you have taken back, every one his man-servant and his servant-girl, whom you had sent away free, and you have put them under the yoke again to be your servants and servant-girls. 17 And so the Lord has said, You have not given ear to me and undertaken publicly, every man to let loose his countryman and his neighbour: see, I undertake to let loose against you the sword and disease and need of food; and I will send you wandering among all the kingdoms of the earth. 18 And I will give the men who have gone against my agreement and have not given effect to the words of the agreement which they made before me, when the ox was cut in two and they went between the parts of it, 19 The rulers of Judah and the rulers of Jerusalem, the unsexed servants and the priests and all the people of the land who went between the parts of the ox, 20 Even these I will give up into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives: and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth. 21 And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his rulers I will give into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives, and into the hands of the king of Babylon's army which has gone away from you. 22 See, I will give orders, says the Lord, and make them come back to this town; and they will make war on it and take it and have it burned with fire: and I will make the towns of Judah waste and unpeopled.

The Obedience of the Rechabites

351 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, 2 Go into the house of the Rechabites, and have talk with them, and take them into the house of the Lord, into one of the rooms, and give them wine. 3 Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons and all the Rechabites; 4 And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the rulers' room, which was over the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door; 5 And I put before the sons of the Rechabites basins full of wine and cups, and I said to them, Take some wine. 6 But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, gave us orders, saying, You are to take no wine, you or your sons, for ever: 7 And you are to make no houses, or put in seed, or get vine-gardens planted, or have any: but all your days you are to go on living in tents, so that you may have a long life in the land where you are living as in a strange country. 8 And we have kept the rules of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, in everything which he gave us orders to do, drinking no wine all our days, we and our wives and our sons and our daughters; 9 Building no houses for ourselves, having no vine-gardens or fields or seed: 10 But we have been living in tents, and have done everything which Jonadab our father gave us orders to do. 11 But when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came up into the land, we said, Come, let us go to Jerusalem, away from the army of the Chaldaeans and from the army of the Aramaeans: and so we are living in Jerusalem.

12 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 13 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Go and say to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Is there no hope of teaching you to give ear to my words? says the Lord. 14 The orders which Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave to his sons to take no wine, are done, and to this day they take no wine, for they do the orders of their father: but I have sent my words to you, getting up early and sending them, and you have not given ear to me. 15 And I have sent you all my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them, saying, Come back, now, every man from his evil way, and do better, and go not after other gods to become their servants, and you will go on living in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but your ears have not been open, and you have not given attention to me. 16 Though the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have done the orders of their father which he gave them, this people has not given ear to me: 17 For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem all the evil which I said I would do to them: because I sent my words to them, but they did not give ear; crying out to them, but they gave no answer. 18 But to the Rechabites Jeremiah said, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Because you have done the orders of Jonadab your father, and have kept his rules, and done everything as he gave you orders to do it; 19 For this reason the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, will never be without a man to take his place before me.

The Burning of the Roll

361 Now it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 Take a book and put down in it all the words I have said to you against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations, from the day when my word came to you in the days of Josiah till this day. 3 It may be that the people of Judah, hearing of all the evil which it is my purpose to do to them, will be turned, every man from his evil ways; so that they may have my forgiveness for their evil-doing and their sin. 4 Then Jeremiah sent for Baruch, the son of Neriah; and Baruch took down from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had said to him, writing them in a book. 5 And Jeremiah gave orders to Baruch, saying, I am shut up, and am not able to go into the house of the Lord: 6 So you are to go, reading there from the book, which you have taken down from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of the people in the Lord's house, on a day when they go without food, and in the hearing of all the men of Judah who have come out from their towns. 7 It may be that their prayer for grace will go up to the Lord, and that every man will be turned from his evil ways: for great is the wrath and the passion made clear by the Lord against this people. 8 And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did as Jeremiah the prophet gave him orders to do, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

9 Now it came about in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that it was given out publicly that all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem, were to keep from food before the Lord. 10 Then Baruch gave a public reading of the words of Jeremiah from the book, in the house of the Lord, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher square, as one goes in by the new doorway of the Lord's house, in the hearing of all the people. 11 And Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, after hearing all the words of the Lord from the book, 12 Went down to the king's house, to the scribe's room: and all the rulers were seated there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the rulers. 13 Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words which had come to his ears when Baruch was reading the book to the people. 14 So all the rulers sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the book from which you have been reading to the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Neriah, took the book in his hand and came down to them. 15 Then they said to him, Be seated now, and give us a reading from it. So Baruch did so, reading it to them. 16 Now it came about that, after hearing all the words, they said to one another in fear, We will certainly give the king an account of all these words. 17 And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did you put all these words down in writing from his mouth? 18 Then Baruch, answering, said, He said all these things to me by word of mouth, and I put them down with ink in the book. 19 Then the rulers said to Baruch, Go and put yourself in a safe place, you and Jeremiah, and let no man have knowledge of where you are.

20 Then they went into the open square to the king; but the book they put away in the room of Elishama the scribe; and they gave the king an account of all the words. 21 So the king sent Jehudi to get the book, and he took it from the room of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi gave a reading of it in the hearing of the king and all the rulers who were by the king's side. 22 Now the king was seated in the winter house, and a fire was burning in the fireplace in front of him. 23 And it came about that whenever Jehudi, in his reading, had got through three or four divisions, the king, cutting them with his penknife, put them into the fire, till all the book was burned up in the fire which was burning in the fireplace. 24 But they had no fear and gave no signs of grief, not the king or any of his servants, after hearing all these words. 25 And Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made a strong request to the king not to let the book be burned, but he would not give ear to them. 26 And the king gave orders to Jerahmeel, the king's son, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord kept them safe. 27 Then after the book, in which Baruch had put down the words of Jeremiah, had been burned by the king, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 28 Take another book and put down in it all the words which were in the first book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, put into the fire. 29 And about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: You have put this book into the fire, saying, Why have you put in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come, causing the destruction of this land and putting an end to every man and beast in it? 30 For this reason the Lord has said of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, He will have no son to take his place on the seat of David: his dead body will be put out to undergo the heat of the day and the cold of the night. 31 And I will send punishment on him and on his seed and on his servants for their evil-doing; I will send on them and on the people of Jerusalem and the men of Judah, all the evil which I said against them, but they did not give ear. 32 Then Jeremiah took another book, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who put down in it, from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which had been burned in the fire by Jehoiakim, king of Judah: and in addition a number of other words of the same sort.

So Great Salvation

21 For this reason there is the more need for us to give attention to the things which have come to our ears, for fear that by chance we might be slipping away. 2 Because if the word which came through the angels was fixed, and in the past every evil act against God's orders was given its full punishment; 3 What will come on us, if we do not give our minds to such a great salvation? a salvation of which our fathers first had knowledge through the words of the Lord, and which was made certain to us by those to whom his words came; 4 And God was a witness with them, by signs and wonders, and by more than natural powers, and by his distribution of the Holy Spirit at his pleasure.

The Captain of Salvation Made Perfect through Suffering

5 For he did not make the angels rulers over the world to come, of which I am writing. 6 But a certain writer has given his witness, saying, What is man, that you keep him in mind? what is the son of man, that you take him into account? 7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you gave him a crown of glory and honour, and made him ruler over all the works of your hands: 8 You put all things under his feet. For in making man the ruler over all things, God did not put anything outside his authority; though we do not see everything under him now. 9 But we see him who was made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, crowned with glory and honour, because he let himself be put to death so that by the grace of God he might undergo death for all men.

10 Because it was right for him, for whom and through whom all things have being, in guiding his sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation complete through pain. 11 For he who makes holy and those who are made holy are all of one family; and for this reason it is no shame for him to give them the name of brothers, 12 Saying, I will give the knowledge of your name to my brothers, I will make a song of praise to you before the church. 13 And again he says, I will put my faith in him. And again, See, I am here, and the children which God has given to me.

14 And because the children are flesh and blood, he took a body himself and became like them; so that by his death he might put an end to him who had the power of death, that is to say, the Evil One; 15 And let those who all their lives were in chains because of their fear of death, go free. 16 For, truly, he does not take on the life of angels, but that of the seed of Abraham. 17 Because of this it was necessary for him to be made like his brothers in every way, so that he might be a high priest full of mercy and keeping faith in everything to do with God, making offerings for the sins of the people. 18 For having been put to the test himself, he is able to give help to others when they are tested.