“Indeed, I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north.”

This is the LORD’s declaration.

They will come, and each king will set up his throne

at the entrance to Jerusalem’s gates.

They will attack all her surrounding walls

and all the other cities of Judah.

“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and there call out this word: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD.

Judah mourns;

her city gates languish.

Her people are on the ground in mourning;

Jerusalem’s cry rises up.

“I scattered them with a winnowing fork

at the city gates of the land.

I made them childless; I destroyed my people.

They would not turn from their ways.

This is what the LORD said to me, “Go and stand at the People’s Gate, through which the kings of Judah enter and leave, as well as at all the gates of Jerusalem.

“and go out to Ben Hinnom Valley near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you.

So Pashhur had the prophet Jeremiah beaten and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the LORD’s temple.

“You are to say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David ​— ​you, your officers, and your people who enter these gates.

When the officials of Judah heard about these things, they went from the king’s palace to the LORD’s temple and sat at the entrance of the New Gate of the LORD’s temple.[fn]

“Look, the days are coming” ​— ​the LORD’s declaration ​— ​“when the city[fn] from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate will be rebuilt for the LORD.

Then at the LORD’s temple, in the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper courtyard at the opening of the New Gate of the LORD’s temple, in the hearing of all the people, Baruch read Jeremiah’s words from the scroll.

But when he was at the Benjamin Gate, an officer of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, and he apprehended the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “You are defecting to the Chaldeans.”

But Ebed-melech, a Cushite court official in the king’s palace, heard Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Benjamin Gate,

All the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat at the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar, Nebusarsechim[fn] the chief of staff, Nergal-sharezer the chief soothsayer, and all the rest of the officials of Babylon’s king.

This is what the LORD of Armies says:

Babylon’s thick walls will be totally demolished,

and her high gates set ablaze.

The peoples will have labored for nothing;

the nations will weary themselves only to feed the fire.

Then the city was broken into, and all the warriors fled. They left the city at night by way of the city gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. They made their way along the route to the Arabah.