¹And these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²after Jeconiah the king, and the queen mother, and the officials, the chiefs of Judah and Jerusalem, and the engravers and the smiths, had gone out from Jerusalem,

³by the hand of Eleasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, to Babylon, saying:

⁴This is what Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel says to all the exile whom I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

⁵Build houses and dwell; plant gardens and eat their fruit.

⁶Take wives and father sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to men, and let them bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not become few.

⁷And seek the wholeness of the city where I have taken you into exile, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf; for in its wholeness there will be wholeness for you.

⁸For this is what Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel says: Do not let your prophets who are in your midst, and your diviners, deceive you, and do not listen to your dreams that you are dreaming.

⁹For they prophesy to you in my name with falsehood; I did not send them, the utterance of Yahweh.

¹⁰For this is what Yahweh says: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will attend to you, and I will make my good word stand for you, to bring you back to this place.

¹¹For I myself know the plans that I am planning for you, the utterance of Yahweh, plans of wholeness and not of evil, to give you a latter end and a hope.

¹²And you will call on me, and you will go and pray to me, and I will hear you.

¹³And you will seek me and you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart.

¹⁴And I will let myself be found by you, the utterance of Yahweh, and I will turn back your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I banished you there, the utterance of Yahweh; and I will bring back you to the place from which I took you into exile.

¹⁵For you said: Yahweh has raised up prophets for us in Babylon.

¹⁶For this is what Yahweh says concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who did not go out with you into the exile:

¹⁷This is what Yahweh of hosts says: Here I am, sending against them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence; and I will make them like the vile figs that cannot be eaten because of their badness.

¹⁸And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the land, a curse, a desolation, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have banished them there.

¹⁹because they did not listen to my words, the utterance of Yahweh, when I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising early and sending; and you did not listen, the utterance of Yahweh.

²⁰And you, hear the word of Yahweh, all of the exile whom I sent from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²¹This is what Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel says concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and concerning Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who prophesy falsehood to you in my name: Here I am, giving them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will strike them down before your eyes.

²²And from them a curse will be taken up by all the exile of Judah who are in Babylon, saying: May Yahweh make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.

²³because they committed an outrage in Israel, and committed adultery with the wives of their neighbors, and spoke a word of falsehood in my name, which I did not command them; and I am the one who knows, and am a witness, the utterance of Yahweh.

²⁴And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall say:

²⁵This is what Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel says: Because you yourself sent in your own name letters to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying:

²⁶Yahweh has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be overseers in the house of Yahweh, over every man who is mad and prophesies, and you are to put him in the stocks and in the pillory.

²⁷And now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah the Anathothite, who prophesies to you?

²⁸For because of this he has sent word to us in Babylon, saying: It will be long; build houses and dwell, plant gardens and eat their fruit.

²⁹And Zephaniah the priest read aloud this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet.

³⁰And the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying:

³¹Send to all the exile, saying: Like this Yahweh said about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and caused you to trust in falsehood.

³²Therefore, like this Yahweh said: Look, I am about to visit punishment upon Shemaiah the Nehelamite and upon his seed; he will have no man dwelling in the middle of this people, and he will not see the good that I am doing for my people, the utterance of Yahweh, for he spoke rebellion against Yahweh.