¹ Then all the captains of the warriors, and Johanan the son of Caree, and Jezonias the son of Osaias, and the rest of the people from the least to the greatest came near:

² And they said to Jeremias the prophet: Let our supplication fall before thee: and pray thou for us to the Lord thy God for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as thy eyes do behold us.

³ And let the Lord thy God shew us the way by which we may walk, and the thing that we must do.

⁴ And Jeremias the prophet said to them: I have heard you: behold I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words: and whatsoever thing he shall answer me, I will declare it to you: and I will hide nothing from you.

⁵ And they said to Jeremias: The Lord be witness between us of truth and faithfulness, if we do not according to every thing for which The Lord thy God shall send thee to us.

⁶ Whether it be good or evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom me send thee: that it may be well with us when we shall hearken to the voice of the Lord our God.

⁷ Now after ten days, the word of the Lord came to Jeremias.

⁸ And he called Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest.

⁹ And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, to whom you sent me, to present your supplications before him:

¹⁰ If you will be quiet and remain in this land, I will build you up, and not pull you down: I will plane you, and not pluck you up: for now I am appeased for the evil that I have done to you.

¹¹ Fear not because of the king of Babylon, of whom you are greatly afraid: fear him not, saith the Lord: for I am with you, to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.

¹² And I will shew mercies to you, and will take pity on you, and will cause you to dwell in your own land.

¹³ But if you say: We will not dwell in this land, neither will we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God,

¹⁴ Saying: No, but we will go into the land of Egypt: where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor suffer hunger: and there we will dwell.

¹⁵ For this now hear the word of the Lord, ye remnant of Juda: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to go into Egypt, and enter in to dwell there:

¹⁶ The sword which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt: and the famine, whereof you are afraid, shall cleave to you in Egypt, and there you shall die.

¹⁷ And all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt, to dwell there, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: none of them shall remain, nor escape from the face of the evil that I will bring upon them.

¹⁸ For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my indignation hath been kindled against the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so shall my indignation be kindled against you, when you shall enter into Egypt, and you shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach: and you shall see this place no more.

¹⁹ This is the word of the Lord concerning you, O ye remnant of Juda: Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have adjured you this day.

²⁰ For you have deceived your own souls: for you sent me to the Lord our God, saying: Pray for us to the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say to thee, so declare unto us, and we will do it.

²¹ And now I have declared it to you this day, and ;you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, with regard to all the things for which he hath sent me to you.

²² Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence in the place to which you desire to go to dwell there.

¹ The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

² Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all ye men of Juda, that enter in at these gates, to adore the Lord.

³ Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Make your ways and your doings good: and I will dwell with you in this place.

⁴ Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord.

⁵ For if you will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will execute judgement between a man and his neighbor,

⁶ If you opress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods to your own hurt,

⁷ I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore.

⁸ Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit you:

⁹ To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not.

¹⁰ And you have come, and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have done all these abominations.

¹¹ Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in your eyes become a den of robbers? I, I am he: I have seen it, saith the Lord.

¹² Go ye to my place in Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning: and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel:

¹³ And now, because you have done all these works, saith the Lord: and I have spoken to you rising up early, and speaking, and you have not heard: and I have called you, and you have not answered:

¹⁴ I will do to this house, in which my name is called upon, and in which you trust, and to the places which I have given you and your fathers, as I did to Silo.

¹⁵ And I will cast you away from before my face, as I have cast away all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶ Therefore, do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will not hear thee.

¹⁷ Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to offer libations to strange gods, and to provoke me to anger.

¹⁹ Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? Is it not themselves, to the confusion of their contenance?

²⁰ Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation was enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹ Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh.

²² For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices.

²³ But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.

²⁴ But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went backward and not forward,

²⁵ From the day that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets from day to day, rising up early and sending.

²⁶ And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers.

²⁷ And thou shalt speak to them all these words, but they will not hearken to thee: and thou shalt call them, but they will not answer thee.

²⁸ And thou shalt say to them: This is a nation which hath not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction: Faith is lost, and is carried away out of their mouth.

²⁹ Cut off thy hair, and cast it away: and take up a lamentation on high: for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath,

³⁰ Because the children of Juda have done evil in my eyes, saith the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house in which my name is called upon, to pollute it;

³¹ And they have built the high places of Topeth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons, and their daughters in the fire: which I commanded not, nor thought on in my heart.

³² Therefore behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and it shall no more be called Topeth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom: but the valley of slaughter, and they shall bury in Topeth, because there is no place.

³³ And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to drive them away.

³⁴ And I will cause ot cease out of the cities of Juda, and out of the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, and the coice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.