Jeremiah 26

¹ At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word was addressed to Jeremiah by Yahweh,

² ‘Yahweh says this: Stand in the court of the Temple of Yahweh. To all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the Temple of Yahweh you must speak all the words I have commanded you to tell them; do not omit one syllable.

³ Perhaps they will listen and each turn from his evil way: if so, I shall relent and not bring the disaster on them which I intended for their misdeeds.

⁴ Say to them, “Yahweh says this: If you will not listen to me by following my Law which I put before you,

⁵ by paying attention to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send so persistently to you, without your ever listening to them,

⁶ I will treat this Temple as I treated Shiloh, and make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth”.’

⁷ The priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah say these words in the Temple of Yahweh.

⁸ When Jeremiah had finished saying everything that Yahweh had ordered him to say to all the people, the priests and prophets seized hold of him and said, ‘You shall die!

⁹ Why have you made this prophecy in the name of Yahweh, “This Temple will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, and uninhabited”?’ And the people were all crowding round Jeremiah in the Temple of Yahweh.

¹⁰ Hearing of this, the officials of Judah went up from the royal palace to the Temple of Yahweh and took their seats at the entry of the New Gate of the Temple of Yahweh.

¹¹ The priests and prophets then addressed the officials and all the people, ‘This man deserves to die, since he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears’.

¹² Jeremiah, however, replied to the people as follows, ‘Yahweh himself sent me to say all the things you have heard against this Temple and this city.

¹³ So now amend your behaviour and actions, listen to the voice of Yahweh your God: if you do, he will relent and not bring down on you the disaster he has pronounced against you.

¹⁴ For myself, I am as you see in your hands. Do whatever you please or think right with me.

¹⁵ But be sure of this, that if you put me to death, you will be bringing innocent blood on yourselves, on this city and on its citizens, since Yahweh has truly sent me to you to say all these words in your hearing.’

¹⁶ The officials and all the people then said to the priests and prophets, ‘This man does not deserve to die: he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God’.

¹⁷ Some of the elders of the land had risen to address all the assembled people.

¹⁸ ‘Micah of Moresheth,’ they said ‘who prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, had this to say to all the people of Judah, “Yahweh says this: Zion will become ploughland, Jerusalem a heap of rubble, and the mountain of the Temple a wooded height”.[*a]

¹⁹ ‘Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all of Judah put him to death for this? Did they not rather, fearing Yahweh, entreat his favour, to make him relent and not bring the disaster on them which he had pronounced against them? Are we now to burden our souls with such a crime?’

²⁰ There was another man, too, who used to prophesy in the name of Yahweh, Uriah son of Shemaiah, from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied exactly the same things against this city and this land as Jeremiah.

²¹ When King Jehoiakim with all his ministers and officials heard what he said, he wished to put him to death. Learning this, Uriah took fright and escaped to Egypt.

²² King Jehoiakim, however, sent Elnathan son of Achbor to Egypt with others,

²³ who brought Uriah back from Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him put to the sword and his body thrown into the common burying ground.

²⁴ But Jeremiah had a protector in Ahikam son of Shaphan,[*b] so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.