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1-2In the fourth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, which was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia, the Lord told me to speak to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. So I told them:[#2 K 24.1; 2 Ch 36.5-7; Dn 1.1,2.; #25.1,2 See the note at 1.3.; #25.1,2 See the note at 21.2.]
3For 23 years now, ever since the thirteenth year that Josiah was king, I have been telling you what the Lord has told me. But you have not listened.[#25.3 Hebrew “Josiah son of Amon”; Josiah ruled 640–609 b.c.]
4The Lord has sent prophets to you time after time, but you refused to listen.
5They told you that the Lord had said:
15The Lord God of Israel showed me a vision in which he said, “Jeremiah, here is a cup filled with the wine of my anger. Take it and make every nation drink some.
16They will vomit and act crazy, because of the war this cup of anger will bring to them.”
17I took the cup from the Lord 's hand, and I went to the kings of the nations and made each of them drink some.
18I started with Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and the king and his officials were removed from power in disgrace. Everyone still makes insulting jokes about them and uses their names as curse words.
19The second place I went was Egypt, where everyone had to drink from the cup, including the king and his officials, the other government workers, the rest of the Egyptians,
20and all the foreigners who lived in the country.
Next I went to the king of Uz, and then to the four kings of Philistia, who ruled from Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what was left of Ashdod.
21Then I went to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon,
22and to the kings of Tyre, Sidon, and their colonies across the sea.
23-24After this, I went to the kings of Dedan, Tema, Buz, the tribes of the Arabian Desert,[#25.23,24 One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.]
25Zimri, Elam, Media,
26and the countries in the north, both near and far.
I went to all the countries on earth, one after another, and finally to Babylonia.
27The Lord had said to tell each king, “The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, commands you to drink from this cup that is full of the wine of his anger. It will make you so drunk that you will vomit. And when the Lord sends war against the nations, you will be completely defeated.”
28The Lord told me that if any of them refused to drink from the cup, I must tell them that he had said, “I, the Lord All-Powerful, command you to drink.
29Starting with my own city of Jerusalem, everyone on earth will suffer from war. So there is no way I will let you escape unharmed.”
30The Lord told me to say:
From my sacred temple
I will roar like thunder,
while I trample my people
and everyone else
as though they were grapes.
31My voice will be heard
everywhere on earth,
accusing nations of their crimes
and sentencing the guilty
to death.
32The Lord All-Powerful says:
You can see disaster spreading
from far across the earth,
from nation to nation
like a horrible storm.
33When it strikes, I will kill so many people that their bodies will cover the ground like manure. No one will be left to bury them or to mourn.
34The Lord 's people are his flock,
and you leaders
were the shepherds.
But now it's your turn
to be butchered like sheep.
You'll shatter like fine pottery
dropped on the floor.
So roll on the ground,
crying and mourning.
35You have nowhere to run,
nowhere to hide.
*
36-37Listen to the cries
of the shepherds,
as the Lord 's burning anger
turns peaceful meadows
into barren deserts.
38Like a lion leaving its den,
the Lord has abandoned
his people
to the destruction of war.