Jeremiah 25 is the twenty-fifth chapter of the

Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah () is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1#Superscription, Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "th ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

of the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. This book contains prophecies attributed to the

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. Chapter 25 is the final chapter in the first section of the Book of Jeremiah, which deals with the earliest and main core of Jeremiah's message. In this chapter, Jeremiah identified the length of the time of exile as seventy years ( verses 11 -12).

Text

The original text was written in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

. This chapter is divided into 38 verses in English Bibles and the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

. In the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, verse 14 is omitted, and verses 15-38 are numbered as Jeremiah 32:15-38 (see "Verse numbering" below).

Verse numbering

The order of chapters and verses of the Book of Jeremiah in the English Bibles, Masoretic Text (Hebrew), and

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

(Latin), in some places differs from that in

(LXX, the Greek Bible used in the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

and others) according to Rahlfs or Brenton. The following table is taken with minor adjustments from ''Brenton's Septuagint'', page 971. The order of Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study (CATSS) based on ''

Alfred Rahlfs Alfred Rahlfs (; ; 29 May 1865 – 8 April 1935) was a German Biblical scholar. He was a member of the history of religions school. He is known for his edition of the Septuagint published in 1935. Biography He was born in Linden near Hanover, a ...

' Septuaginta'' (1935), differs in some details from Joseph Ziegler's critical edition (1957) in ''Göttingen LXX''. ''Swete's Introduction'' mostly agrees with Rahlfs' edition (=CATSS).

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

are of the

tradition, which includes the

Codex Cairensis The Codex Cairensis (also: ''Codex Prophetarum Cairensis'', ''Cairo Codex of the Prophets'') is a Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets). It has traditionally been described as "the oldest dated He ...

(895), the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (916),

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex () is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. ...

(10th century), Codex Leningradensis (1008). Some fragments containing parts of this chapter were found among the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

, i.e., 4QJer^c (4Q72; 1st century BC), with extant verses 7‑8, 15‑17, 24‑26 (similar to Masoretic Text). There is also a translation into

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

known as the

(with a different verse numbering and some textual differences), made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the

version include

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

(B;

\mathfrak

^B; 4th century),

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

(S; BHK:

\mathfrak

^S; 4th century),

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

(A;

\mathfrak

^A; 5th century) and

Codex Marchalianus Codex Marchalianus, designated by siglum Q, is a 6th-century Greek language, Greek manuscript copy of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament) known as the Septuagint. It is now in the Vatican Library. The text was writte ...

(Q;

\mathfrak

^Q; 6th century).

Parashot

The ''

parashah The term ''parashah'', ''parasha'' or ''parashat'' ( ''Pārāšâ'', "portion", Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian , Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardi , plural: ''parashot'' or ''parashiyot'', also called ''parsha'') formally means a section of a biblical book ...

'' sections listed here are based on the

. Jeremiah 25 contains the ''Ninth prophecy'' in the section of ''Prophecies of Destruction ( Jeremiah 1-25)''. : open ''parashah''; : closed ''parashah''. : 25:1-7 25:8-14 25:15-27a 25:27b-31 כה אמר 25:32-38

Seventy years of captivity (25:1–14)

Verse 1

: ''The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon).'' The "word of the Lord" in Jeremiah 36:1 also came to Jeremiah "in the fourth year of

Jehoiakim Jehoiakim, also sometimes spelled Jehoikim was the eighteenth and antepenultimate King of Judah from 609 to 598 BC. He was the second son of King Josiah () and Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. His birth name was Eliakim. Background Af ...

the son of

Josiah Josiah () or Yoshiyahu was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE). According to the Hebrew Bible, he instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Until the 1990s, the biblical description of Josiah’s ...

, king of Judah". The bracketed words, "which was the first year of

Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

king of Babylon", are doubted to be original as they are not included in the Septuagint.

Verse 2

:''which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:'' The message concerned all the people and was therefore delivered to all the people, proclaimed without fear by Jeremiah.

Verse 3

:''"From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened.'' Cross reference: Jeremiah 1:2 *"Even to this day": that is the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah (605 BC), so since "the thirteenth year of Josiah" (627 BC), it was "the 23th year" of persistent proclaiming God's Word by Jeremiah.

Verse 11

: ''And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.'' * "These nations": Judah and the surrounding nations, such as Moab and Phoenicia. * "Seventy years": may represent "the length of lifetime" ().The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. Michael D. Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, Editors. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2007. p. 1117-1119 Hebrew Bible. The

New King James Version The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English, working as a revision of the King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the ...

dates the "seventy years of serving" the king of Babylon from circa 605 BC ( 2 Kings 24:1) and ends them circa 536 BC ().Footnote b at Jeremiah 25:12 in the New King James Version The same seventy year duration is referred to in Zechariah 1
:12.

Verse 12

: '''Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.''' * Cross reference: Jeremiah 29:10, ; Zechariah 1:12; Zechariah 7:5 *"Seventy years": Circa 605-536 BC (see #Verse 11, notes on verse 11). The announcement of the Judah's punishment at the hand of foreign nations must have puzzled Jeremiah's audience, as also become the subject of questions by Habakkuk ( Habakkuk ), but verse 12 is to put it to rest by stating that after God have used Babylon to punish His people, He would punish Babylon for its sins.

Verse 13

:''So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations.'' According to biblical commentator A. W. Streane, "at this point there presents itself one of the most marked discrepancies between the Septuagint Version of Jeremiah and the Hebrew. The Greek Version as it stands now ends the sentence with 'in this book', and reads as a new sentence, and title of the section on the nations, “What Jeremiah prophesied against the nations”. The

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

ends the first 25 chapters of Jeremiah here: :''I will bring down on that country (Babylon) all the words I have pronounced again it, all that is written in this book.'' and the second part of the verse: :''What Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.'' starts a new section and acts as the start of "a sort of preface to the oracle against the nations", which is located in chapters 46–51, drawing on the dividing point seen in the Septuagint.

Cup of God’s wrath (25:15–38)

Verse 23

:''Dedan and Tema and Buz, all the desert dwellers who shave their

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

s;'' NABRE The New American Bible Revised Edition identifies these groups as North Arabian tribes.

Verse 26

: ''All the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth. Also the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.'' " Sheshach" (): means "

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

" (, ''babel''; also in Jeremiah 51:41), cryptically written using the "

Atbash Atbash (; also transliterated Atbaš) is a monoalphabetic substitution cipher originally used to encrypt the Hebrew alphabet. It can be modified for use with any known writing system with a standard collating order. Encryption The Atbash ciph ...

" monoalphabetic substitution cipher system.

Verse 36

:''A voice of the cry of the shepherds'' ::''and a howling of the leaders of the flock shall be heard,'' ::''for the Lord has devastated their pasture.'' *"Their pasture": in Hebrew literally, "their pastures", referring to the place where they "shepherd" their "flocks".Note on Jeremiah 25:36 in NET Bible