The Daily Audio Bible

God's promises to his people

33 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah a second time while he was in prison in the yard of the palace. ² He said, ‘I am the Lord who made the earth. I gave a shape to it and I put it in its place. The Lord is my name. I say this to you: ³ “Call out to me and I will answer you. I will tell you about great things. They are secret things that you do not yet know.” ⁴ The Lord, Israel's God, has a message about the houses in this city and about the royal palaces of Judah's kings. The people have knocked down the city's buildings. They have used the stones to make the city's walls stronger, ⁵ to fight against Babylon's army. The Lord says, “The city's houses will be full of dead bodies. I am very angry with the people in the city and I will kill them. I will refuse to help this city because of the wicked things that its people have done.

⁶ But listen to me! I will bring health again to the people of this city. I will make my people well again. They will live safely in peace. ⁷ I will bring back the people of Judah and Israel from foreign lands. I will make them a strong nation, as they were before. ⁸ They have done bad things and they have turned against me. But I will forgive all their sins that they have done against me. ⁹ Then this city will cause the people of all the nations on the earth to give me honour. They will praise me and make me happy. They will hear about all the good things that I am doing for Jerusalem. They will see that I have caused its people to have health and peace. Because of that, they will respect me and they will shake with fear.” 

¹⁰ The Lord says, “You say that this place is like a desert, and no people or animals live here. But I tell you that people will return to live here. You will hear the voices of people in the streets of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah that are now empty. ¹¹ You will hear the sounds of happy people. You will hear the songs of men and women at their weddings. You will hear the voices of people as they bring gifts to the Lord's temple to thank him. They will say,

Yes, I will make the land successful again, as it was before.” That is what the Lord says.

¹² The Lord Almighty says, “This place will become a heap of stones. No people or animals will live here. But I will put fields of grass around the towns again. There will be places for shepherds to rest with their sheep. ¹³ Shepherds will count their sheep again, one by one. They will do that in the towns of the hill country, in the low hills in the west and in the Negev region in the south. They will do it in the land that belongs to Benjamin's tribe, in the villages around Jerusalem and in all the towns of Judah.” That is what the Lord says.

¹⁴ The Lord also says, “A time will soon come when I do good things for the nations of Israel and Judah. I will do what I have promised to do for them. ¹⁵ At that time, I will cause a descendant of David to be born. He will be righteous. He will grow like a branch on the tree of David's family. He will do what is right and fair in the land.^{[a] 16} When he rules, the people of Judah will be safe. Jerusalem's people will live in peace. People will give this name to the city: ‘The Lord is our righteous Saviour.’ ”

¹⁷ The Lord says, “One of David's descendants will always rule as king over the nation of Israel. ¹⁸ There will always be priests who are descendants of Levi. They will serve me in my temple. They will always be there to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings and other sacrifices to me.” ’

¹⁹ The Lord also said this to Jeremiah: ²⁰ ‘I, the Lord, say to you, “The day and the night will always come at their proper times. I have made that agreement with them, and nobody can stop it. ²¹ In the same way, nobody can stop the covenant that I have made with my servant David, and with the Levites. I promise you that there will always be a descendant of King David who rules as king. I also promise that there will always be descendants of Levi to serve me as priests. ²² I promise that my servant David will always have many descendants. There will also be very many Levites to serve me as priests. You will not be able to count them. They will be more than the stars in the sky and more than the sand on the shore of the sea.” ’

²³ The Lord also said to Jeremiah, ²⁴ ‘Some people are saying, “The Lord chose the two nations of Israel and Judah to be his special people. But now he has turned away from them.” You have heard people say those things. They do not think that my people will ever be a nation again. ²⁵ But I promise you this: Nobody can stop the agreement that I have made with the day and the night. I have also commanded the earth and the sky to obey certain laws. ²⁶ In the same way, I will never change my promise to the descendants of Jacob and to my servant David. I will always choose one of David's descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.^[b] I will bring them back to their own land. I will be kind to them and forgive them.’

God warns Zedekiah

34 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah again, while King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his army were attacking Jerusalem. Soldiers from all the kingdoms that King Nebuchadnezzar ruled joined with Babylon's own soldiers to make a large army. They were attacking Jerusalem and the towns around it. ² The Lord, Israel's God, said to Jeremiah, ‘Go to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and give him this message: The Lord says, “I will put this city under the power of the king of Babylon. He will burn it down. ³ You will not be able to escape. Babylon's soldiers will certainly take hold of you. They will take you to the king of Babylon. You will have to stand in front of the king of Babylon and answer his questions. Then you will go to Babylon as his prisoner.

⁴ But listen to the promise that the Lord makes to you, Zedekiah, king of Judah. I, the Lord, promise you that you will not die in a battle. ⁵ Instead, you will die with peace in your mind. People will burn incense to give you honour when they bury you. They did that for your ancestors who ruled as kings before you. They will do it for you too. When you die, people will weep because they are sad. They will say, ‘This is terrible! Our king has died!’ That is my promise to you, says the Lord.” ’

⁶ The prophet Jeremiah told all this to King Zedekiah of Judah, in Jerusalem. ⁷ This happened when the king of Babylon's army were attacking Jerusalem and the cities of Lachish and Azekah. Those were the only strong cities in Judah that were not yet under his power.

King Zedekiah and the slaves

⁸ At another time, the Lord gave Jeremiah another message for King Zedekiah. Zedekiah had made an agreement with the people of Jerusalem. They all agreed to let their slaves go free. ⁹ Everyone in Judah who had a Hebrew slave must let their slave go free, both male and female slaves. Nobody should keep another Israelite person as their slave. ¹⁰ All the officers and the people agreed with the king that they would do this. They would not continue to have male or female slaves. They let them go free, as they had promised. ¹¹ But later, they decided that they would not do that. They took the men and women back to work for them as slaves again. They forced them to do that.

¹² Then the Lord said to Jeremiah, ¹³ ‘The Lord, Israel's God, says this to the people: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt. They had been slaves when they were there. ¹⁴ I told them, “When any Hebrew slave has worked for you for six years, you must let them go free. In the seventh year after they sold themselves to you, you must set them free.”^[c] But your ancestors did not listen to me. They did not obey me. ¹⁵ But now, you yourselves agreed to do what pleases me. You decided to obey me. You made a serious agreement with me in the temple which is my home. You let your slaves go free. ¹⁶ But now you have turned back to your old ways. You have refused to give me honour. You had let your slaves go free, as they wanted to do. But now you have forced them to work for you as your slaves again.

¹⁷ So I, the Lord, tell you this: You have not obeyed me. You have not let your Israelite slaves become free men and women. So now I will make you free! Yes, you will be free to let war, famine or disease kill you. People of all the kingdoms in the world will see how disgusting you are. ¹⁸ I will punish the people who did not obey the agreement that they made with me. When they made that agreement, they cut a young cow into two pieces and they walked between the pieces. Because they have not obeyed their agreement, I will now cut them into pieces, like the young cow.^[d]

¹⁹ I will punish the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the king's officers and the priests. I will punish all the people of Judah who refused to obey the agreement that they made with me. ²⁰ I will put them under the power of their enemies. Their enemies will kill them. Birds and wild animals will eat their dead bodies as food.

²¹ I will also put King Zedekiah of Judah and his officers under the power of their enemies. Their enemies will want to kill them. The king of Babylon's army has stopped attacking Jerusalem for a time. But I will put King Zedekiah and his officers under their power. ²² I will command Babylon's army to return to this city. They will fight against it and they will take it. They will burn the city down. I will also cause the other towns of Judah to become heaps of stones. Nobody will live in them any more.’

False teachers

4 God's Spirit tells us clearly that, in later times, some people will stop believing the message about Jesus Christ. Instead, they will listen to bad spirits who want people to believe wrong things. They will listen to the message that comes from demons. ² The people who teach those false things are hypocrites. They no longer understand that what they teach is wrong. ³ They say that it is wrong for anyone to marry. They tell people not to eat certain kinds of food. But God made those foods for people to eat! We should understand God's true message and trust him. Then we will receive the food that he has given us and we will thank him for it. ⁴ Everything that God has made is good. So we should not refuse anything that he has made. Instead, we should receive it and thank God for it. ⁵ God has said that it is good. We should pray that he will bless it. Because of that, it becomes good and clean for us to eat.^[a]

How Timothy can be a good servant of Christ

⁶ You must explain these things to the believers and teach them God's true message. If you do that, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. Continue to study the message about Jesus that you have already learned. That will help you to be strong. ⁷ But you must refuse to listen to false stories. Stories like that are not from God and only silly people believe them. Instead, learn to live well in a way that makes God happy. ⁸ People say this: ‘If a person works to make his body strong and healthy, that will help him a little. But if a person works to live in a way that makes God happy, that will help him much more. It will help that person in his life now on earth. It will also help him in his future life with God in heaven.’ ⁹ We know that those words are true. Everyone should agree with them. ¹⁰ So that is why we work to serve God well. We continue to work, even when we have trouble. We do this because we believe that God will help us. He is the one who lives for ever and who saves all people. Certainly, he saves those who are believers.

¹¹ Teach people to do these things. ¹² You are still a young man, but everyone should respect you as the leader in the church. Show the believers how they should live. Be a good example to them in these ways:

¹³ Until I come, be careful to read the Bible aloud to people. Teach them to understand and to obey the message about Christ. ¹⁴ Remember the gift that God's Holy Spirit has given to you. You received that gift when the group of church leaders put their hands on you.^[b] They spoke messages from God about how you would serve him. So do not stop using that gift from God.

¹⁵ Be careful to do all these things well. Then everyone will see that you are serving God better and better. ¹⁶ Think carefully about how you live, and about the message that you teach. Continue to teach God's true message. Then God will save not only you, but also those people who listen to you.

This is a special song that Ethan the Ezrahite wrote.

God's special love^[a]

²³ When the wind blows from the north, it brings rain. In the same way, when somebody tells other people's secrets, it brings anger.

²⁴ It is better to live on the roof of your house than to live with a wife who always argues.