World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 12
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You are , , when I contend with you; yet I would like to plead a case with you. Why does of prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously? You have planted them. Yes, they have taken root. They grow. Yes, they produce fruit. You are near in their , and far from their . But you, , know me. You see me, and toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter. How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, "He won't see our latter end." "If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? Though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of ? For even your brothers, and the house of your , even they have dealt treacherously with you! Even they have cried aloud after you! Don't them, though they speak beautiful words to you. "I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of into the hand of her . My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest. She has uttered her voice against me. Therefore I have hated her. Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the animals of the field. Bring them to devour. Many have destroyed my . They have trodden my under foot. They have made my pleasant a desolate . They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares. Destroyers have come on all the heights in ; for of devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No has peace. They have sown wheat, and have reaped . They have exhausted themselves, and profit nothing. You will be of your fruits, because of ." says, "Concerning all my evil neighbors, who touch the which I have caused my people Israel to : Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. It will happen that after I have plucked them up, I will return and have on them. I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. It will happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to by my name, 'As lives;' even as they taught my people to by , then they will be built up in the middle of my people. But if they will not hear, then I will pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it," .
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Jeremiah