World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 22
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said, "Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there: 'Hear word, king of Judah, who sits on —you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these . says: " and , and him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no to the , , or the . Don't in this place. For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on will enter in by the of this house, riding in chariots and on horses—they, their servants, and their people. But if you will not hear these words, I by myself," , "that this house will become a desolation."'" For says concerning the house of the king of Judah: "You are to me, the head of . Yet surely I will make you a , cities which are not inhabited. I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the . "Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, 'Why has done this to this great city?' Then they will answer, 'Because they abandoned of their , other gods, and them.'" Don't weep for . Don't bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country. For says touching Shallum the son of , king of Judah, who reigned instead of his , and who went out of this place: "He won't return there any more. But he will in the place where they have led him . He will see this land no more." "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor's without wages, and doesn't give him his hire; who says, 'I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,' and cuts out windows for himself, with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red. "Should you reign because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your eat and drink, and do justice and ? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of and needy; so then it was well. Wasn't this to know me?" . But your eyes and are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent , for , and for doing ." Therefore says concerning the son of , king of Judah: "They won't for him, saying, 'Ah my brother!' or, 'Ah sister!' They won't for him, saying 'Ah !' or, 'Ah his !' He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the of ." "Go up to , and cry out. Lift up your voice in , and cry from ; for all your lovers have been destroyed. I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, 'I will not listen.' This has been your way from your youth, that you didn't . The wind will feed all your , and your lovers will go into . Surely then you will be and confounded for all your wickedness. Inhabitant of , who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail! "As I live," , "though the son of king of Judah were the signet on my , I would still pluck you from there. I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of king of , and into the hand of the . I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will . But to the land to which their longs to return, there they will not return." Is this man a despised broken ? Is he a in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his , and cast into a land which they don't know? O earth, earth, earth, hear word! says, "Record this man as , a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his prosper, sitting on and ruling in Judah."
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