Chapter 23 Book of Jeremiah

Book of Jeremiah The Prophecy of Jeremiah During the reign of Josiah king of Judah for thirteen years, until his two sons Jehoiakim and Zedekiah became kings successively, Naremiah, the priest of the city of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, The first time I received a revelation from the Lord.He was the prophet of that time.God sanctified him before he was born in the womb and sent him to be a prophet to the nations. In a dream, Jeremiah saw a boiling pot pouring from the north, followed by an almond tree.God told him that disaster would come upon the Jews from the north.All the families of the northern nations will raise up an army and besiege Jerusalem, and attack all the cities of Judah at the same time.

Jeremiah was then sent to the people to proclaim the word of God, telling them not to panic, that despite attacks, the foreigners could not overcome them.But they should reflect on their sins, because they have betrayed the Lord, and the disasters they have suffered are entirely caused by their many sins. God said through Jeremiah that Israel violated the way of God, and its treacherous sister also committed adultery and apostasy, and she was Judah.And Judah's sin was greater than Israel's.Nevertheless, God expects them to repent and return, so that they are not abandoned. But the Judah family was stubborn and unrepentant, and God decided to make it suffer all the disasters.Jeremiah mournfully prayed to the Lord on behalf of the people: "Lord, I know that a man's way is not his own, and he who travels cannot set his own steps. Punish me leniently, Lord, and do not punish me in Your wrath. I, lest I should be brought to nothing."

God told Jeremiah not to pray for the people, not to cry out for them, and when they cry to God in distress, God will never answer. Jeremiah himself foretold the murder of the Jews, who would cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name would no longer be remembered.God also told Jeremiah that even his brothers and his father's house would treat him treacherously. God told Naremiah to go and say to the kings and queens that only by being humble can you avoid disaster, "because your turbans, that is, your crowns of beauty, have fallen off. The cities in the south are all closed, and no one opens them. The whole of Judah was taken captive, and all captives were taken."

God rejected Jeremiah's cry again, saying, "Even though Moses and Samuel stand before me interceding, my heart does not spare this people. Drive them out of my sight and let them go. Tell them , Thus says the LORD: He who is condemned to die will die; he who is condemned to the sword will be killed by the sword; he who is condemned to famine will be in famine; The sword shall kill, and the dogs shall tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth shall devour and destroy them. They shall be thrown to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem."

In order to warn the Jews in Jerusalem, Jeremiah announced in the city the prophecy that the Lord would bring disasters to them. According to God’s command, he used the kiln worker’s clay vase as a metaphor to explain that the prosperity and destruction of Jerusalem are the will of the Lord. . As everyone knows, Jeremiah's prophecy offended Pashhur, the head of the temple, who first beat the prophet severely, then put him in stocks and put him in prison.The Prophet was released the next day. Jeremiah said to him, "God does not call you Sheshur, but Magor Mezabi (which means frightened on all sides). He will make you feel terrified, says the LORD, and you will make you His relatives and friends will be terrified. They will fall by the sword of their enemies, and you will see it. He will deliver the Jews into the hand of the king of Babylon, who will take them captive and kill them. All the wealth and all the treasures of the toil and all the treasures of the kings of Judah are delivered into the hands of their enemies. They will take them as a spoil to Babylon. You Pashhur and all who live in you All your household will be taken captive, and you and all your friends, to whom you prophesied lies, will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried there."

No one listened to Jeremiah's words. People thought him a madman and ridiculed him. Even his former friends spied on him and stumbled him.They made him an enemy of Jerusalem, and took revenge on him.The prophet in loneliness, when he was in grief and indignation, even issued a lament that cursed his own birthday. Jeremiah's prophecy finally spread to the officials of the king of Judah. ​​Because Zedekiah was attacked by the Babylonian army, he asked Pashhur and the priest Zephaniah to find Jeremiah.Let him go and ask the LORD to deliver Jerusalem. Jeremiah asked these two men to tell King Zedekiah that God had announced that the weapons in the king's hands, which were used to fight against the king of Babylon and the besieged Chaldeans outside the city, would be turned upside down and assembled in the city. Attack the Jews themselves.There will be great plagues and famines in the city, and those who survive will become captives of the king of Babylon.He will strike them down with the sword, with no pity, no pity, no mercy.

Facing the way of life and the way of death, Jeremiah exhorted the Jews to leave the city and surrender to the besieged Chaldeans.As for the royal family of Judah, since they were punished for their evil deeds, they had no choice but to reform. Jeremiah prophesied that Shallum, the son of King Josiah, who was called Jehoahaz in "2 Kings," would succeed him as king of Judah, but he would be taken captive, died in a foreign land, and could not return home; Josiah's The other son, King Jehoiakim, who was not tolerated by his brothers and sisters and subjects because of his covetousness and unrighteousness, will die and be thrown like a buried donkey outside the gates of Jerusalem; Raise your voice and weep, and destroy everything for him.Jehoiakim's son, Coniah, also ascended the throne, but he was destined to be handed over to those who wanted his life and whom he feared, namely Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans.He and his biological mother will die in Babylon.None of his descendants could prosper, none could sit on David's throne and govern Judah.But the LORD is merciful, and he will raise up a righteous offspring from David's descendants, make him king and save Judah.The Lord will also make Israel dwell in safety.

In conclusion, since the Jews did not obey the command of the Lord of hosts, he will call the northern tribes and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon against it.The inhabitants of Judah and all the surrounding nations will be wiped out, and there will be terror and desolation forever.The Lord will silence from among them the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, the sound of the millstone, and the light of the lamps, and the whole earth will be desolate and terrifying.This nation will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. As soon as Jeremiah had finished prophesying, the priests, the false prophets, and the people came up and seized him. They said, "You shall die! How dare you pretend that the name of the LORD has Desolate place!"

The princes of Judah also came from the palace to the temple, and sat at the gate of the house of the LORD to judge.The priest told the king that Naremi should be put to death because he had dared to curse the city by prophesying.Jeremiah defended himself and said, "Have you heard what I said? If you correct your actions and obey the Lord's voice, he will regret it and will not bring disaster on you. As for me, now in your hands, what do you see? Good, what is right, you can deal with me like that. But you must know for sure that if you put me to death, the blood of innocent people will be "you and this city and its residents."For I have been sent by the LORD to tell you all this. "

Then the princes of the land of Judah and all the people said to the high priest and all the false prophets, This man deserves no death, because he has come to speak to us in the name of the LORD our God.Although Jeremiah was not executed, another prophet, Uriah, also said that Judah would invite foreign attacks, and that the king of Judah and his generals would kill him.Uriah fled to Egypt, but they took him back from there, killed him, and threw his body in the cemetery of the people. In the fourth year of King Zedekiah of Judah's reign, Hananiah, another prophet, said in the temple that Jehovah had allowed the Jews to be released from the yoke of the king of Babylon, and that all the treasures in the temple of Jehovah should return to Zion.But Jeremiah said that Hananiah would perish because he removed the wooden yoke from the Jews and put in its place a heavier iron yoke.

While the Chaldeans were besieging Jerusalem, the Egyptian Pharaoh's army also entered the Chaldean border.While the Chaldean army was withdrawing from the siege, Jeliah wanted to go with the people to the land of Benjamin, but when he arrived in Benjamin, he was falsely accused by the gatekeeper of the city of planning to join the Chaldeans and was imprisoned. King Zedekiah sent someone to invite him to his palace and asked him if he had received any oracle from the LORD.Jeremiah asked the king to release him, or at least not send him back to prison with the city guard.Zedekiah ordered him to be imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard. However, several other Judah elders in the city, such as the aforementioned Pashhur, Juka, and Pashhur, slandered the king, saying that this man did not come to bring peace to the people, but to bring disaster to them.So the king told them to deal with Jeremiah, and put him in a prison, which had no water but was waist-high in mud. The eunuch in the palace, named Eber-melech, went to the king.The king was terrified and sent Ebermelech to pull Jeremiah out of prison. The king of Babylon finally broke through Jerusalem. This was Zedekiah's tenth year as king. On the day when the city was broken, the generals of the king of Babylon, Nichasharexier, Sanjia Nebo, Sasikin, and Lasani, were sitting at the middle gate.When the king of Judah saw that they had camped there, he fled by night.He went out through the gate between the two cities of the king's garden, and the army of the Chaldeans pursued Zedekiah. They seized him on the plains of Jericho on their way to Alaser.Bring him back to King Nebuchadnezzar's camp. The king of Babylon killed Zedekiah's sons and all the nobles of Judah in front of him, gouged out his eyes, and bound him with bronze chains to bring him back to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar's men set fire to the city, and thousands of houses and palaces were destroyed.The Chaldeans forced Judah to tear down the walls of Jerusalem.All the Jews were taken captive to Babylon, but the poor who had nothing remained to plant vineyards and fields for them in the land of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar ordered Jeremiah to be released, and he told them to treat him kindly.Jeremiah was allowed not to go to Babylon with the large Jewish population.The Chaldeans appointed Gedaliah of Judah as governor, and let him rule over the remaining people and pay tribute to the Chaldeans.After the Chaldean army fled, Ishmael, supported by the Ammonites, killed Gedaliah.Then Johanan drove out Ishmael again.Joah refused to listen to Jeremiah's advice and defected to Pharaoh of Egypt. In the following years, the subjugated Jews lingered in the cracks of the surrounding great powers. Jeremiah, on behalf of God, prophesied to the Jews that Egypt would be defeated by Babylon, and that the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites would be punished. But Babylon will suffer retribution. The last verse of Jeremiah deals with Jehoiachin, king of Judea, who was taken captive in Babylon.Thirty-seven years after being captive, Evemerodad, king of Babylon, ascended the throne, and on December 25 of that year, Jehoiachin was allowed to raise his head, and he was brought out of prison.And spoke words of favor to him, and granted him the highest place among the hostage kings of Babylon.He took off his prison uniform and could eat with the king of Babylon for life, and he was given a ration every day until he died. (Jesus: 1-52)