23:21. I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
23:22. If they had stood in my counsel, and had made my words known to my people, I should have turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked doings.
23:23. Am I, think ye, a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
23:24. Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?
23:25. I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, and say: I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
23:26. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and that prophesy the delusions of their own heart?
23:27. Who seek to make my people forget my name through their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour: as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.
23:28. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word, let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord?
23:29. Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
23:30. Therefore behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who steal my words every one from his neighbour.
23:31. Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who use their tongues, and say: The Lord saith it.
23:32. Behold I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord: and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lying, and by their wonders: when I sent them not, nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord.
23:33. If therefore this people, or the prophet, or the priest shall ask thee, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt say to them: You are the burden: for I will cast you away, saith the Lord.
23:34. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say: The burden of the Lord: I will visit upon that man, and upon his house.
Burden of the Lord... This expression is here rejected and disallowed, at least for those times: because it was then used in mockery and contempt by the false prophets, and unbelieving people, who ridiculed the repeated threats of Jeremias under the name of his burdens.
23:35. Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour, and to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and what hath the Lord spoken?
23:36. And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for every man's word shall be his burden: for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.
23:37. Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: What hath the Lord answered thee? and what hath the Lord spoken?
23:38. But if you shall say: The burden of the Lord: therefore thus saith the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord: and I have sent to you, saying: Say not, The burden of the Lord:
23:39. Therefore behold I will take you away carrying you, and will forsake you, and the city which I gave to you, and to your fathers, out of my presence.
Out of my presence... That is, the Lord declares that out of his presence he will cast them, and bring them to captivity for their transgressions.
23:40. And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall never be forgotten.
Jeremias Chapter 24
Under the type of good and bad figs, he foretells the restoration of the Jews that had been carried away captive with Jechonias, and the desolation of those that were left behind.
24:1. The Lord shewed me: and behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of the Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his chief men, and the craftsmen, and engravers of Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.
24:2. One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first season: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, because they were bad.
24:3. And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: Figs, the good figs, very good: and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad.
24:4. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
24:5. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Juda, whom I have sent forth out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good.
24:6. And I will set my eyes upon them to be pacified, and I will bring them again into this land: and I will build them up, and not pull them down: and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
24:7. And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: because they shall return to me with their whole heart.
24:8. And as the very bad figs, that cannot be eaten, because they are bad: thus saith the Lord: So will I give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that have remained in this city, and that dwell in the land of Egypt.
24:9. And I will deliver them up to vexation, and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a reproach, and a byword, and a proverb, and to be a curse in all places, to which I have cast them out.
24:10. And I will send among them the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: till they be consumed out of the land which I gave to them, and their fathers.
Jeremias Chapter 25
The prophet foretells the seventy years captivity; after that the destruction of Babylon, and other nations.
25:1. The word that came to Jeremias concerning all the people of Juda, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, (the same is the first year of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon,)
25:2. Which Jeremias the prophet spoke to all the people of Juda, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:
25:3. From the thirteenth year of Josias the son of Ammon king of Juda until this day: this is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising before day, and speaking, and you have not hearkened.
25:4. And the Lord hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ears to hear.
25:5. When he said: Return ye, every one from his evil way, and from your wicked devices, and you shall dwell in the land which the Lord hath given to you, and your fathers for ever and ever.
25:6. And go not after strange gods to serve them, and adore them: nor provoke me to wrath by the works of your hands, and I will not afflict you.
25:7. And you have not heard me, saith the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own hurt.
25:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Because you have not heard my words:
25:9. Behold I will send, and take all the kindreds of the north, saith the Lord, and Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon my servant: and I will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all the nations that are round about it: and I will destroy them, and make them an astonishment and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
My servant... So this wicked king is here called; because God made him his instrument in punishing the sins of his people.
25:10. And I will take away from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp.
25:11. And all this land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment: and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
25:12. And when the seventy years shall be expired, I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans: and I will make it perpetual desolations.
Punish... Literally, visit upon.