The Enemy from the North

25 ^(A)In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, I received a message from the Lord concerning all the people of Judah. (This was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia.) ² I said to all the people of Judah and of Jerusalem, ³ “For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was king of Judah until this very day, the Lord has spoken to me, and I have never failed to tell you what he said. But you have paid no attention. ⁴ You would not listen or pay attention, even though the Lord has continued to send you his servants the prophets. ⁵ They told you to turn from your wicked way of life and from the evil things you are doing, so that you could go on living in the land that the Lord gave you and your ancestors as a permanent possession. ⁶ They told you not to worship and serve other gods and not to make the Lord angry by worshiping the idols you had made. If you had obeyed the Lord, then he would not have punished you. ⁷ But the Lord himself says that you refused to listen to him. Instead, you made him angry with your idols and have brought his punishment on yourselves.

⁸ “So then, because you would not listen to him, the Lord Almighty says, ⁹ ‘I am going to send for all the peoples from the north and for my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. I am going to bring them to fight against Judah and its inhabitants and against all the neighboring nations. I am going to destroy this nation and its neighbors and leave them in ruins forever, a terrible and shocking sight. I, the Lord, have spoken. ^10 (B)I will silence their shouts of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. They will have no oil for their lamps, and there will be no more grain. ^11 (C)This whole land will be left in ruins and will be a shocking sight, and the neighboring nations will serve the king of Babylonia for seventy years. ¹² After that I will punish Babylonia and its king for their sin. I will destroy that country and leave it in ruins forever. ¹³ I will punish Babylonia with all the disasters that I threatened to bring on the nations when I spoke through Jeremiah—all the disasters recorded in this book. ¹⁴ I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done, and many nations and great kings will make slaves of them.’”

God's Judgment on the Nations

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, “Here is a wine cup filled with my anger. Take it to all the nations to whom I send you, and make them drink from it. ¹⁶ When they drink from it, they will stagger and go out of their minds because of the war I am sending against them.”

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, gave it to all the nations to whom the Lord had sent me, and made them drink from it. ¹⁸ Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah, together with its kings and leaders, were made to drink from it, so that they would become a desert, a terrible and shocking sight, and so that people would use their name as a curse—as they still do.

^19-26 Here is the list of all the others who had to drink from the cup:

Every nation on the face of the earth had to drink from it. Last of all, the king of Babylonia will drink from it.

²⁷ Then the Lord said to me, “Tell the people that I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, am commanding them to drink until they are drunk and vomit, until they fall down and cannot get up, because of the war that I am sending against them. ²⁸ And if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink from it, then tell them that the Lord Almighty has said that they will still have to drink from it. ²⁹ I will begin my work of destruction in my own city. Do they think they will go unpunished? No, they will be punished, for I am going to send war on all the people on earth. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.

³⁰ “You, Jeremiah, must proclaim everything I have said. You must tell these people,

³² The Lord Almighty says that disaster is coming on one nation after another, and a great storm is gathering at the far ends of the earth. ³³ On that day the bodies of those whom the Lord has killed will lie scattered from one end of the earth to the other. No one will mourn for them, and they will not be taken away and buried. They will lie on the ground like piles of manure.

³⁴ Cry, you leaders, you shepherds of my people, cry out loud! Mourn and roll in the dust. The time has come for you to be slaughtered,^[a] and you will be butchered like rams.^{[b] 35} There will be no way for you to escape. ^36-37 You moan and cry out in distress because the Lord in his anger has destroyed your nation and left your peaceful country in ruins. ³⁸ The Lord has abandoned his people^[c] like a lion that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the Lord's fierce anger have turned the country into a desert.

King Joahaz of Judah^(A)

36 The people of Judah chose Josiah's son Joahaz and anointed him king in Jerusalem. ² Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. ³ King Neco of Egypt took him prisoner and made Judah pay 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold as tribute. ^4 (B)Neco made Joahaz' brother Eliakim king of Judah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Joahaz was taken to Egypt by Neco.

King Jehoiakim of Judah^(C)

^5 (D)Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. He sinned against the Lord his God. ^6 (E)King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah, captured Jehoiakim, and took him to Babylonia in chains. ⁷ Nebuchadnezzar carried off some of the treasures of the Temple and put them in his palace in Babylon. ⁸ Everything that Jehoiakim did, including his disgusting practices and the evil he committed, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

King Jehoiachin of Judah^(F)

⁹ Jehoiachin was eighteen^[a] years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. He too sinned against the Lord. ^10 (G)When spring came, King Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylonia as a prisoner and carried off the treasures of the Temple. Then Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin's uncle^[b] Zedekiah king of Judah and Jerusalem.

King Zedekiah of Judah^(H)

^11 (I)Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. ¹² He sinned against the Lord and did not listen humbly to the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke the word of the Lord.

The Fall of Jerusalem^(J)

^13 (K)Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had forced him to swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He stubbornly refused to repent and return to the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ In addition, the leaders of Judah, the priests, and the people followed the sinful example of the nations around them in worshiping idols, and so they defiled the Temple, which the Lord himself had made holy. ¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, had continued to send prophets to warn his people, because he wanted to spare them and the Temple. ¹⁶ But they made fun of God's messengers, ignoring his words and laughing at his prophets, until at last the Lord's anger against his people was so great that there was no escape.

^17 (L)So the Lord brought the king of Babylonia to attack them. The king killed the young men of Judah even in the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed them all over to him. ¹⁸ The king of Babylonia looted the Temple, the Temple treasury, and the wealth of the king and his officials, and took everything back to Babylon. ^19 (M)He burned down the Temple and the city, with all its palaces and its wealth, and broke down the city wall. ²⁰ He took all the survivors to Babylonia, where they served him and his descendants as slaves until the rise of the Persian Empire. ^21 (N)And so what the Lord had foretold through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “The land will lie desolate for seventy years, to make up for the Sabbath rest^[c] that has not been observed.”

Cyrus Commands the Jews to Return^(O)

²² In the first year that Cyrus of Persia was emperor,^[d] the Lord made what he had said through the prophet Jeremiah come true. He prompted Cyrus to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his empire:

^23 (P)“This is the command of Cyrus, Emperor of Persia. The Lord, the God of Heaven, has made me ruler over the whole world and has given me the responsibility of building a temple for him in Jerusalem in Judah. Now, all of you who are God's people, go there, and may the Lord your God be with you.”

THE STORY OF DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS (1.1—6.28)

The Young Men at Nebuchadnezzar's Court

1 ^(A)In the third year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia attacked Jerusalem and surrounded the city. ^2 (B)The Lord let him capture King Jehoiakim and seize some of the Temple treasures. He took some prisoners back with him to the temple of his gods in Babylon, and put the captured treasures in the temple storerooms.