1. The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah (which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon).
2. Jeremiah the prophet spoke it to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:
3. “From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, until this day—these 23 years—the word of Adonai has come to me. So I have spoken to you, speaking early and often, but you have not listened.
4. Moreover, Adonai has sent to you all His servants the prophets, sending them early and often—but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear—
5. saying: ‘Turn, now, everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell in the land that Adonai has given to you and to your fathers forever and ever.
6. Do not go after other gods to serve them, to worship them, and so do not provoke Me with the work of your hands, so I would do you no harm.’
7. “Yet you have not listened to Me,” declares Adonai. “So you are provoking Me with the work of your hands, to your own hurt.”
8. Therefore thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: “Since you have not heard My words,
9. I will soon send for and bring all the families of the north”—it is a declaration of Adonai—“and I will send for King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them, and make them a horror, and a hissing, an enduring desolation.
10. “Moreover, I will silence among them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.