What does Jeremias Chapter 29 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The captive letter commands settling and seeking city peace. Visitation, prayer and wholehearted seeking accompany promised return. Named false prophets receive distinct announced judgments.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 29's letter goes from Jerusalem to captive ancients, priests, prophets and people after Jechonias, queen, eunuchs, princes, craftsmen and engravers departed. Elasa son of Saphan and Gamarias son of Helcias carry it on Sedecias's mission. Captives must build houses, plant orchards, eat fruit, marry, arrange children's marriages and increase, and seek and pray for their city's peace. Unsent prophets, diviners and their own dreams must not deceive them.

When seventy years begin to be accomplished in Babylon, the Lord promises visitation and return. Thoughts of peace rather than affliction give an end and patience. Calling, prayer and wholehearted seeking accompany being found and gathered from all places. Jerusalem's David-throne king and nondeported brethren receive sword, famine, pestilence and bad-fig comparison, with affliction, curse, astonishment, hissing and reproach for refusing words sent by prophets rising by night.

Achab son of Colias and Sedecias son of Maasias, distinct from the reigning king, face delivery to Nabuchodonosor and death; their fire fate becomes a curse for adultery with friends' wives and lying speech. Semeias's letters to Jerusalem and Sophonias son of Maasias claim his priestly authority replaces Joiada and demand rebuke of Jeremias, citing stocks and prison for men raving and prophesying. Sophonias reads it to Jeremias. The Lord announces visitation on Semeias and seed, no man sitting among the people, and Semeias not seeing promised good for treason. These decrees are not narrated as already executed or generalized to universal personal prosperity.

The story inside

Opening: The captive letter commands settling and seeking city peace. Development: Visitation, prayer and wholehearted seeking accompany promised return. Conclusion: Named false prophets receive distinct announced judgments.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The captive letter commands settling and seeking city peace.
2
Visitation, prayer and wholehearted seeking accompany promised return.
3
Named false prophets receive distinct announced judgments.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 86962–86990
29:4. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 29:5. Build ye houses, and dwell in them: and plant orchards, and eat the fruit of them. 29:6. Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters: and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, and let them bear sons and daughters: and be ye multiplied there, and be not few in number. 29:7. And seek the peace of the city, to which I have caused you to be carried away captives; and pray to the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall be your peace. 29:8. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Let not your prophets that are in the midst of you, and your diviners deceive you: and give no heed to your dreams which you dream: 29:9. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name: and I have not sent them, saith the Lord. 29:10. For thus saith the Lord: When the seventy years shall begin to be accomplished in Babylon, I will visit you: and I will perform my good word in your favour, to bring you again to this place. 29:11. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction, to give you an end and patience.
Lines 87028–87041
29:21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to Achab the son of Colias, and to Sedecias the son of Maasias, who prophesy unto you in my name falsely: Behold I will deliver them up into the hands of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon: and he shall kill them before your eyes. 29:22. And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Juda, that are in Babylon, saying: The Lord make thee like Sedecias, and like Achab, whom the king of Babylon fried in the fire: 29:23. Because they have acted folly in Israel, and have committed adultery with the wives of their friends, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I commanded them not: I am the judge and the witness, saith the Lord.