“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.

Although you wash yourself with soap and use an abundance of cleansing powder, the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Sovereign Lord.

I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

As a well pours out its water, so she pours out her wickedness. Violence and destruction resound in her; her sickness and wounds are ever before me.

Therefore this is what the Lord says: “I will put obstacles before this people. Parents and children alike will stumble over them; neighbors and friends will perish.”

and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things?

The Lord said, “It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law.

But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

Jeremiah’s Complaint

You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares.

Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it to utter darkness and change it to deep gloom.

Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go!

The mother of seven will grow faint and breathe her last. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. I will put the survivors to the sword before their enemies,” declares the Lord.

For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place.

I have not run away from being your shepherd; you know I have not desired the day of despair. What passes my lips is open before you.

Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before their enemies; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster.”

Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember that I stood before you and spoke in their behalf to turn your wrath away from them.

But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.

“‘In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals.

“Furthermore, tell the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.

Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you,

Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah before the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord.

and he said before all the people, “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon off the neck of all the nations within two years.’” At this, the prophet Jeremiah went on his way.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: “I will deliver them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes.