Jeremiah 25

¹The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (this was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon),

²which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

³From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the LORD’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.

⁴The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear),

⁵saying, “Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forever more.

⁶Don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; then I will do you no harm.”

⁷“Yet you have not listened to me,” says the LORD, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.”

⁸Therefore the LORD of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words,

⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth 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.