4. King Zedekiah will be captured and taken to King Nebuchadnezzar, who will speak with him face to face.
5. Then Zedekiah will be led away to Babylonia, where he will stay until I have finished with him. So, if you people of Judah fight against the Babylonians, you will lose. I, the Lord, have spoken.
6. Later, when I was in prison, the Lord said:
7. Jeremiah, your cousin Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will visit you. He must sell his field near the town of Anathoth, and because you are his nearest relative, you have the right and the responsibility to buy it and keep it in the family.
8. Hanamel came, just as the Lord had promised. And he said, “Please buy my field near Anathoth in the territory of the Benjamin tribe. You have the right to buy it, and if you do, it will stay in our family.”The Lord had told me to buy it
9. from Hanamel, and so I did. The price was seventeen pieces of silver, and I weighed out the full amount on a scale.
30-33. The kings and the officials, the priests and the prophets, and everyone else in Israel and Judah have turned from me and made me angry by worshipping idols. Again and again I have tried to teach my people to obey me, but they refuse to be corrected.I am going to get rid of Jerusalem, because its people have done nothing but evil.
34. They have set up disgusting idols in my temple, and now it isn't a fit place to worship me.
35. And they led Judah into sin by building places to worship Baal in Hinnom Valley, where they also sacrificed their sons and daughters to the god Molech. I have never even thought of telling them to commit such disgusting sins.
36. Jeremiah, what you said is true. The people of Jerusalem are suffering from hunger and disease, and so the king of Babylonia will be able to capture Jerusalem.
37. I am angry with the people of Jerusalem, and I will scatter them in foreign countries. But some day I will bring them back here and let them live in safety.
38. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
39-41. I will make their thoughts and desires pure. Then they will realize that, for their own good and the good of their children, they must worship only me. They will even be afraid to turn away from me. I will make an agreement with them that will never end, and I won't ever stop doing good things for them. With all my heart I promise that they will be planted in this land once again.
42. Even though I have brought disaster on the people, I will some day do all these good things for them.
43. Jeremiah, when you bought the field, you showed that fields will some day be bought and sold again. You say that this land has been conquered by the Babylonians and has become a desert, emptied of people and animals.
44. But some day, people will again spend their silver to buy fields everywhere—in the territory of Benjamin, the region around Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and in the hill country, the foothills to the west, and the Southern Desert. Buyers and sellers and witnesses will sign and seal the bills of sale for the fields. It will happen, because I will give this land back to my people. I, the Lord, have spoken.