World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 29
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Now these are the words of the letter that the sent from to the residue of the of , and to the priests, to , and to all the people whom had from to , (after the king, the queen mother, the , the princes of Judah and , the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from ), by the hand of Elasah the son of and Gemariah the son of , (whom king of Judah sent to to king of ). It said: of Armies, the of Israel, says to all the whom I have caused to be from to : "Build houses and in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don't be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be , and to for it; for in its peace you will have peace." For of Armies, the of Israel says: "Don't let your who are among you and your deceive you. Don't listen to your which you cause to be dreamed. For they falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them," . For says, "After seventy years are accomplished for , I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the that I think toward you," , " of peace, and not of evil, to give you and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all . I will be found by you," , "and I will turn again your , and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you," . "I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be ." Because you have said, " has us up in ," says concerning the king who sits on , and concerning all the people who in this city, your brothers who haven't gone with you into , of Armies says: "Behold, I will send on them , the , and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can't be eaten, they are so bad. I will pursue after them with , with the , and with the pestilence, and will them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a among all the nations where I have driven them, because they have not listened to my words," , "with which I sent to them my servants , rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear," . Hear therefore word, all you whom I have sent away from to . of Armies, the of Israel, says concerning the son of Kolaiah, and concerning the son of , who a lie to you in my name: "Behold, I will them into the hand of king of ; and he will kill them before your eyes. will be taken up about them by all the of Judah who are in , saying, ' make you like and like , whom the king of roasted in the ;' because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed with their neighbors' wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn't command them. I am he who knows, and am ," . Concerning you shall speak, saying, " of Armies, the of Israel, says, 'Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are at , and to the son of , the priest, and to all the priests, saying, " has made you priest in the place of the priest, that there may be officers in house, for every man who is crazy and makes himself a , that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles. Now therefore, why have you not rebuked of , who makes himself a to you, because he has sent to us in , saying, is long. Build houses, and in them. Plant gardens, and eat their fruit?"'" the priest read this letter in the hearing of the . 30Then word came to , saying, "Send to all of the , saying, ' says concerning : "Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I didn't send him, and he has caused you to in a lie," therefore says, "Behold, I will punish and his . He will not have a man to among this people. He won't see the good that I will do to my people," , "because he has spoken rebellion against ."'"
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