King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 26
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of the reign of the son of king of Judah came this word from , saying, Thus saith ; Stand in the court of ’s house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to in ’s house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word: If so be they will , and turn every man from his evil way, that I may me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith ; If ye will not to me, to walk in , which I have set before you, To to the words of my servants , whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; Then will I make this house like , and will make this city to all the nations of the earth. So the priests and and all the people heard speaking these words in the . Now it came to pass, when had made an end of speaking all that had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely . Why hast thou prophesied in the name of , saying, This house shall be like , and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant? And all the people were gathered against in the . When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king’s house unto the , and sat down in the entry of the new of ’s house. Then spake the priests and unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to ; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears. Then spake unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, sent me to against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and your ; and will him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you. But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to , ye shall surely bring innocent upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears. Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to ; This man is not worthy to : for he hath spoken to us in the name of our . Then rose up certain of the of the land, and spake to all of the people, saying, Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith of hosts; shall be plowed like a field, and shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the of a forest. Did king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to ? did he not , and besought , and him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our . And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of , the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath–jearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of : And when the king, with all his , and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to : but when heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into ; And the king sent men into , namely, the son of , and certain men with him into . And they fetched forth out of , and brought him unto the king; who slew him with , and cast his body into the of the common people. Nevertheless the hand of the son of was with , that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to .
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