1. Later that same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah was king, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur from Gibeon came up to me in the temple. And while the priests and others in the temple were listening,
2. he told me that the Lord had said:I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, and I will smash the yoke that Nebuchadnezzar put on the necks of the nations to make them his slaves.
3. And within two years, I will bring back to Jerusalem everything that he took from my temple and carried off to Babylonia.
4. King Jehoiachin and the other people who were taken from Judah to Babylonia will be allowed to come back here as well. All this will happen because I will smash the power of the king of Babylonia!
5. The priests and the others were still standing there, so I said:
6. Hananiah, I hope the Lord will do exactly what you said. I hope he does bring back everything the Babylonians took from the temple, and that our people who were taken to Babylonia will be allowed to return home.
7. But let me remind you and everyone else
8. that long before we were born, prophets were saying powerful kingdoms would be struck by war, disaster, and disease.