2. which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:
3. From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened.
4. The Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear.
5. They said, “Turn now again everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and to your fathers forever and ever.
6. And do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and provoke Me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no harm.”
7. Yet you have not listened to Me, says the Lord, that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own harm.
8. Therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts: Because you have not obeyed My words,
9. I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations; I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
10. Moreover I will take from them the voice of laughter 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 candle.
11. This whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12. It shall come to pass when seventy years are finished that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, says the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
13. I will bring upon that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
14. For many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, even them. And I will recompense them according to their deeds and according to the works of their hands.
15. For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me: Take the wine cup of this fury at My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.
16. They will drink, and totter, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
17. Then I took the cup from the hand of the Lord and made all the nations, to whom the Lord had sent me, drink:
18. Jerusalem and thecities of Judah and the kings and the officials, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;
19. Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his officials, and all his people;
20. and all the foreign people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines (even Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod);