World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 35
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The word which came to from in the days of the son of , king of Judah, saying, "Go to the house of the , and speak to them, and bring them into house, into one of the rooms, and give them to drink." 3Then I took the son of , the son of Habazziniah, with his brothers, all his sons, and the whole house of the ; and I brought them into house, into the room of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the , which was by the room of the princes, which was above the room of the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold. I set before the sons of the house of the bowls full of , and ; and I said to them, "Drink !" But they said, "We will drink no ; for the son of , , commanded us, saying, 'You shall drink no , neither you nor your children, . You shall not build a house, sow , plant a , or have any; but all your days you shall in tents, that you may live many days in the land in which you live as nomads.' We have the voice of the son of , , in all that he commanded us, to drink no all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters; and not to build houses for ourselves to in. We have no , field, or ; 10but we have lived in tents, and have , and done according to all that commanded us. But when king of came up into the land, we said, 'Come! Let's go to for fear of the army of the , and for fear of the army of ; so we will at .'" 12Then word came to , saying, " of Armies, the of Israel, says: 'Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of , "Will you not receive to listen to my words?" . "The words of the son of that he commanded his sons, not to drink , are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they their ; but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking, and you have not listened to me. I have sent also to you all my servants , rising up early and sending them, saying, 'Every one of you must return now from his evil way, amend your doings, and don't go after other gods to them. Then you will in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers;' but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me. The sons of the son of have performed the of their which he commanded them, but this people has not listened to me."' "Therefore , the of Armies, the of Israel, says: 'Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of all the evil that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them, but they have not heard; and I have called to them, but they have not answered.'" said to the house of the , " of Armies, the of Israel, says: 'Because you have the of your , and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he commanded you,' therefore of Armies, the of Israel, says: ' the son of will not lack a man to stand before me .'"
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