Jeremiah 32

Jeremiah Is Imprisoned

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the palace of the king of Judah.

³Zedekiah king of Judah had confined him there.

Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say that the Lord says that he will certainly give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and that he will capture it?

⁴Why do you say that Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and that he will speak with him face-to-face and see him eye-to-eye?

⁵Why do you say that he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, to remain there until the Lord deals with him? declares the Lord . And that even though I fight with the Chaldeans, I will not succeed?”

Jeremiah Redeems a Field

⁶Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me:

⁷Watch for this. Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you and tell you to buy his field in Anathoth, because the right of redemption is yours. So buy it.”

⁸Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the courtyard of the guard, just as the Lord had said, and he told me to buy his field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, because the right to redeem it and take possession of it was mine. He told me to buy it for myself.

Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord .

⁹I purchased the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.[#32:9 That is, about 7 ounces]

¹⁰I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales.

¹¹Then I took the deed of the purchase containing the terms and conditions, both the sealed copy and an unsealed copy,

¹²and I gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, and in the presence of the witnesses who had signed the deed, and in the presence of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.

¹³I gave Baruch instructions in their presence. I told him

¹⁴that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, said: “Take these deeds, the sealed deed of purchase and the unsealed copy, and put them in a clay jar so that they will be preserved for a long time.

¹⁵For the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be purchased in this land.”

¹⁶After I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord :

²⁶Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.