1. These are the messages of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah. Jeremiah belonged to the family of priests who lived in the town of Anathoth. That town is in the land that belongs to the tribe of Benjamin.
2. The Lord began to speak to Jeremiah in the 13th year that Josiah, son of Amon, was king of the nation of Judah.
3. He continued to speak to Jeremiah during the time that Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, was king of Judah and during the eleven years and five months that Zedekiah, also a son of Josiah, was king of Judah. In the fifth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year as king, the people who lived in Jerusalem were taken away into exile.