Jeremiah 27

¹In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord

²“Thus says the Lord

³and send them to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.

⁴And command them to say to their masters, “Thus says the Lord

⁵‘I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are on the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me.

⁶And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and the beasts of the field I have also given him to serve him.

⁷So all nations shall serve him and his son and his son’s son, until the time of his land comes; and then many nations and great kings shall make him serve them.

⁸And it shall be, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,’ says the Lord

⁹Therefore do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, “You shall not serve the king of Babylon.”

¹⁰For they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land; and I will drive you out, and you will perish.

¹¹But the nations that bring their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let them remain in their own land,’ says the Lord

¹²I also spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live!

¹³Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord

¹⁴Therefore do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they prophesy a lie to you;

¹⁵for I have not sent them,” says the Lord

¹⁶Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, “Thus says the Lord

¹⁷Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city be laid waste?

¹⁸But if they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord

¹⁹“For thus says the Lord

²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem—

²¹yes, thus says the Lord

²²‘They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall be until the day that I visit them,’ says the Lord