King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 23
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Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith . Therefore thus saith of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith . And I will gather of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. And I will set up over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith . Behold, the days come, saith , that I will raise unto a Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be , and Israel shall safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, OUR . Therefore, behold, the days come, saith , that they shall no more say, liveth, which brought up the out of the land of ; But, liveth, which brought up and which led the of the out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall in their own land. Mine within me is broken because of ; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom hath overcome, because of , and because of the words of his . For the land is full of ; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right. For both and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith . Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in : they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith . And I have seen folly in of ; they prophesied in , and caused my people Israel to err. I have seen also in of an horrible thing: they , and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of , that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as , and the inhabitants thereof as . Therefore thus saith of hosts concerning ; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from of is profaneness gone forth into all the land. Thus saith of hosts, not unto the words of that unto you: they make you : they speak a of their own , and not out of . They say still unto them that despise me, hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own , No evil shall come upon you. For who hath stood in , and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of . The of shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the of : in the ye shall consider it perfectly. I have not sent these , yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my , and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. Am I a at hand, saith , and not a afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith . Do not I fill and earth? saith . I have heard what said, that lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in of that lies? yea, they are of the deceit of their own ; Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for . The that hath a , let him tell a ; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the to the wheat? saith . Is not my word like as a ? saith ; and like a hammer that breaketh in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against , saith , that steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against , saith , that use their , and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that false , saith , and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith . And when this people, or the , or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of ? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith . And as for the , and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of , I will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath answered? and, What hath spoken? And the burden of shall ye mention no more: for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living , of of hosts our . 37Thus shalt thou say to the , What hath answered thee? and, What hath spoken? But since ye say, The burden of ; therefore thus saith ; Because ye say this word, The burden of , and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of ; Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my : And I will bring an upon you, and a perpetual , which shall not be forgotten.
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