King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 17
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The of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their , and upon the of your ; Whilst their children remember their and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills. O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy to the spoil, and thy for , throughout all thy borders. And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to thine in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a in mine , which shall burn for ever. Thus saith ; be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh his arm, and whose departeth from . For he shall be like the heath in , and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in , in a salt land and not inhabited. is the man that trusteth in , and whose is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of , neither shall cease from yielding fruit. is deceitful above all things, and desperately : who can know it? I search , I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. A high is the place of our sanctuary. O , the of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be , and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken , the fountain of living waters. Heal me, O , and I shall be healed; me, and I shall be : for thou art my . Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of ? let it come now. As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my was right before thee. Be not a terror unto me: thou art my in the day of evil. Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double . Thus said unto me; Go and stand in the of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the of ; And say unto them, Hear ye the word of , ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of , that enter in by these : Thus saith ; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the , nor bring it in by the of ; Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the , neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the , as I commanded your fathers. But they not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive . And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently unto me, saith , to bring in no burden through the of this city on the , but hallow the , to do no work therein; Then shall there enter into the of this city kings and princes sitting upon of , riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of : and this city shall for ever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about , and from the land of , and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and , and meat , and , and bringing of , unto the . But if ye will not unto me to hallow the , and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the of on the ; then will I kindle a thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of , and it shall not be quenched.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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