Jeremiah 38
1 [Four officials, ] Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malkijah, heard what I had been telling all the people.
At that time, says the Lord, I will be a God to the family of Israel, and they shall be to me a people.
2 [I had been telling them] that Yahweh was saying, “Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die. They will be killed by [their enemies’] swords or from famines or from diseases. But those who surrender to the Babylonian army, they will be spared. They will not be killed.
Thus says the Lord, I found him warm in the wilderness with them that were slain with the sword: go you and destroy not Israel.
3 Yahweh also says that the army of the King of Babylon will certainly capture this city [DOU].”
The Lord appeared to him from afar, [saying], I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore have I drawn you in compassion.
4 So those officials [went] to the king and said, “This man [Jeremiah] should be executed! Because of what he is saying, he is discouraging our soldiers who remain in the city. He is also discouraging the people. He is not saying things that will help us; he is saying things that will defeat us.”
For I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall yet take your timbrel, and go forth with the party of them that make merry.
5 King Zedekiah said, “All right, do to him what you want to; I do not have the power to stop you.”
For you have planted vineyards on the mountains of Samaria: plant you, and praise.
6 So those officials took me from my cell and lowered me by ropes into a well in the courtyard. The well belonged to Malkijah, who was a son of the king. There was no water in the well, but there was [a lot of] mud, so I sank [down deep] into the mud.
For it is a day when those that plead on the mountains of Ephraim shall call, [saying], Arise you, and go up to Sion to the Lord your God.
7 But Ebed-Melech, a palace official from Ethiopia, heard [someone say] that I was in the well. [At that time] the king was deciding/judging people’s cases at the Benjamin Gate.
For thus says the Lord to Jacob; Rejoice you, and exult over the head of the nations: make proclamation, and praise you: say, The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel.
8 Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to the king,
Behold, I bring them from the north, and will gather them from the end of the earth to the feast of the passover: and [the people] shall beget a great multitude, and they shall return hither.
9 “Your majesty, those men have done a very evil thing. They have put the prophet Jeremiah in a well. [Almost] all the food in the city is gone, [so they will not be able to bring him any food] and as a result he will die from hunger!”
They went forth with weeping, and I will bring them back with consolation, causing them to lodge by the channels of waters in a straight way, and they shall not err in it: for I am become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 So the king told Ebed-Melech, “Take thirty of my men/soldiers with you, and pull Jeremiah out of the well, in order that he does not die!”
Hear the words of the Lord, you nations, and proclaim [them] to the islands afar off; say, He that scattered Israel will also gather him, and keep him as one that feeds his flock.
11 So Ebed-Melech took thirty men with him and they went into a room in the palace below the room where they stored very valuable things. There they found some old rags and discarded clothing. They took those things and went to the well. They fastened them to a rope and lowered the rope to me.
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, he has rescued him out of the hand of them [that were] stronger than he.
12 Then Ebed-Melech called down to me, “Put these rags underneath your armpits, to protect you from [being injured by] the ropes!” So I did that.
And they shall come, and shall rejoice in the mount of Sion, and shall come to the good things of the Lord, [even] to a land of corn, and wine, and fruits, and cattle, and sheep: and their soul shall be as a fruitful tree; and they shall hunger no more.
13 Then they pulled me out of the well. I [returned] to the courtyard where the palace guards stayed, and I stayed there.
Then shall the virgins rejoice in the assembly of youth, and the old men shall rejoice; and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will make them merry.
14 [One day] King Zedekiah summoned me, and I was brought to the king, [who was waiting for me] at the entrance of the temple. He said to me, “I want to ask you something. I want you [to answer me truthfully, and] and to not conceal anything.”
I will expand and cheer with wine the soul of the priests the sons of Levi, and my people shall be satisfied with my good things: thus says the Lord.
15 I replied, “If I tell you [the truth], you will [command that I] be executed. And if I give you [good] advice, you will not pay attention to what I say.”
A voice was heard in Rama, of lamentation, and of weeping, and wailing; Rachel would not cease weeping for her children, because they are not.
16 But King Zedekiah secretly promised me, “[Tell me the truth]! And as surely as Yahweh lives, I will not [cause] you to be executed, and I will not hand you over to those who are wanting to kill you.”
Thus says the Lord; Let your voice cease from weeping, and your eyes from your tears: for their is a reward for your works; and they shall return from the land of [your] enemies.
17 [So] then I said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Commander of the armies of angels, the God whom [we] Israelis [worship], says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, you and your family will (be spared/not be killed), and this city will not be burned.
[There shall be] an dwelling [home] for your children.
18 But if you refuse to surrender to them, you will not escape. And the army from Babylonia will capture this city and completely burn it.’”
I have heard the sound of Ephraim lamenting, [and saying], You have chastened me, and I was chastened; I as a calf was not [willingly] taught: turn you me, and I shall turn; for you [are] the Lord my God.
19 The king replied, “But I am afraid [to surrender to the soldiers from Babylon], because their officers may hand me over to the people of Judah who have already joined the soldiers from Babylonia, and those people from Judah will mistreat me.”
For after my captivity I repented; and after I knew, I groaned for the day of shame, and showed you that I bore reproach from my youth.
20 I replied, “If you obey Yahweh by doing what I tell you to do, they will not hand you over to our people. Things will go well for you, and you will remain alive.
Ephraim is a beloved son, a pleasing child to me: for because my words are in him, I will surely remember him: therefore I made haste [to help] him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord.
21 But if you refuse to surrender, this is what Yahweh has revealed to me:
Prepare yourself, O Sion; execute vengeance; look to your ways: return, O virgin of Israel, by the way by which you went, return mourning to your cities.
22 All the women who remain in your palace will be brought out and given to the officers of the king of Babylon. Then those women will say to you: ‘You had friends whom [you thought] you could trust, but they have deceived you and caused you to make a wrong decision. Now [it is as though] you are stuck in mud, and your friends have abandoned you.’
How long, O disgraced daughter, will you turn away? for the Lord has created safety for a new plantation: men shall go about in safety.
23 All of your wives and children [in the city] will be led out to the soldiers from Babylonia, and you also will not escape. [The soldiers of] the King of Babylon will seize you, and they will burn down this city.”
For thus says the Lord; They shall yet speak this word in the land of Juda, and in the cities thereof, when I shall turn his captivity; blessed be the Lord on his righteous holy mountain!
24 Then Zedekiah said to me, “Do not tell anyone what you told me; if you tell anyone, my officials may kill you.
And there shall be dwellers in the cities of Juda, and in all his land, together with the husbandman, and [the shepherd] shall go forth with the flock.
25 If my officials find out that I talked to you, perhaps they will come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you and the king were talking about. If you do not tell us, we will kill you.’
For I have saturated every thirsting soul, and filled every hungry soul.
26 If that happens, [just] tell them that you pleaded with me not to send you back to the [dungeon/cell in] Jonathan’s house, [because you were afraid that] you would die [if you were put there again].”
Therefore I awake, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.
27 And [that is what happened]. The king’s officials came to me and asked [why the king had summoned me. But] I told them what the king told me to tell them. So they did not ask me any more [questions], because no one had heard what the king and I had said to each other.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Juda with the seed of man, and the seed of beast.
28 So I remained being guarded in the courtyard [of the palace], until the day that [the army of Babylonia] captured Jerusalem.
And it shall come to pass, that as I watched over them, to pull down, and to afflict, so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the Lord.
In those days they shall certainly not say, The fathers ate a sour grape, and the children's teeth were set on edge.
But every one shall die in his own sin; and the teeth of him that eats the sour grape shall be set on edge.
Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda:
not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.
For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.
And they shall not at all teach every one his [fellow] citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.
Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the moon and the stars for a light by night, and [makes] a roaring in the sea, so that the waves thereof roar; the Lord Almighty is his name:
if these ordinances cease from before me, says the Lord, then shall the family of Israel cease to be a nation before me forever.
Though the sky should be raised to a [greater] height, says the Lord, and though the ground of the earth should be sunk [lower] beneath, yet I will not cast off the family of Israel, says the Lord, for all that they have done.
Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Anameel to the gate of the corner.
And the measurement of it shall proceed in front of them as far as the hills of Gareb, and it shall be compassed with a circular wall of choice stones.
And all the Asaremoth even to Nachal Kedron, as far as the corner of the horse-gate eastward, shall be holiness to the Lord; and it shall not fail any more, and shall not be destroyed for ever.
