3. From 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.
4. The 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),
5. saying, “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.
6. Don’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.”
8. Therefore the Lord of Hosts says: “Because you have not heard my words,
9. behold, 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.
10. 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.
11. This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12. “It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says the Lord, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Kasdim desolate forever.
13. I will bring on 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 bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”
15. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.