18. You show love and kindness to thousands of people, but you also bring punishment to children for their parents’ sins. Great and powerful God, your name is the Lord All-Powerful.
19. You plan and do great things. You see everything that people do, and you reward people for the way they live and for what they do.
20. You did miracles and wonderful things in the land of Egypt. You have continued doing them in Israel and among the other nations even until today. So you have become well known.
21. You brought your people, the Israelites, out of Egypt using signs and miracles and your great power and strength. You brought great terror on everyone.
22. You gave them this land that you promised to their ancestors long ago, a fertile land.
23. They came into this land and took it for their own, but they did not obey you or follow your teachings. They did not do everything you commanded. So you made all these terrible things happen to them.
24. “Look! The enemy has surrounded the city and has built roads to the top of the walls to capture it. Because of war, hunger, and terrible diseases, the city will be handed over to the Babylonians who are attacking it. You said this would happen, and now you see it is happening.
25. But now, Lord God, you tell me, ‘Buy the field with silver and call in witnesses.’ You tell me this while the Babylonian army is ready to capture the city.”
26. Then the Lord spoke this word to Jeremiah:
27. “I am the Lord, the God of every person on the earth. Nothing is impossible for me.
28. So this is what the Lord says: I will soon hand over the city of Jerusalem to the Babylonian army and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it.
29. The Babylonian army is already attacking the city of Jerusalem. They will soon enter it and start a fire to burn down the city and its houses. The people of Jerusalem offered sacrifices to Baal on the roofs of those same houses and poured out drink offerings to other idols to make me angry.
30. From their youth, the people of Israel and Judah have done only the things I said were wrong. They have made me angry by worshiping idols made with their own hands,” says the Lord.
31. “From the day Jerusalem was built until now, this city has made me angry, so angry that I must remove it from my sight.
32. I will destroy it, because of all the evil the people of Israel and Judah have done. The people, their kings and officers, their priests and prophets, all the people of Judah, and the people of Jerusalem have made me angry.
33. They turned their backs to me, not their faces. I tried to teach them again and again, but they wouldn’t listen or learn.