'Words' in the Bible

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

Then said I, O Lord God! see, I have no power of words, for I am a child.

Then the Lord put out his hand, touching my mouth; and the Lord said to me, See, I have put my words in your mouth:

Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and all the families of Israel:

These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false?

Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

Then said I, Ah, Lord God! your words were not true when you said to this people and to Jerusalem, You will have peace; when the sword has come even to the soul.

For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, has said: Because you have said this, I will make my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and they will be burned up by it.

See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words.

The prophets give false words and the priests give decisions by their direction; and my people are glad to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

Give ear, O earth: see, I will make evil come on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not given attention to my words, and they would have nothing to do with my law.

Put no faith in false words, saying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these.

See, you put your faith in false words which are of no profit.

These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: Put your burned offerings with your offerings of beasts, and take flesh for your food.

And you are to say all these words to them, but they will not give ear to you: you will send out your voice to them, but they will give no answer.

Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

His tongue is an arrow causing death; the words of his mouth are deceit: he says words of peace to his neighbour, but in his heart he is waiting secretly for him.

Give ear to the words of this agreement, and say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem,

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Let that man be cursed who does not give ear to the words of this agreement,

And the Lord said to me, Give out these words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Give ear to the words of this agreement and do them.

They are turned back to the sins of their fathers, who would not give ear to my words; they have gone after other gods and become their servants: the people of Israel and the people of Judah have not kept the agreement which I made with their fathers.

For even your brothers, your father's family, even they have been untrue to you, crying loudly after you: have no faith in them, though they say fair words to you.

These evil people who say they will not give ear to my words, who go on in the pride of their hearts and have become servants and worshippers of other gods, will become like this band which is of no use for anything.

Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up: for these are the words of the Lord.

Then the Lord said to me, The prophets say false words in my name, and I gave them no orders, and I said nothing to them: what they say to you is a false vision and wonder-working words without substance, the deceit of their hearts.

And it will be, that when you say all these words to the people, then they will say to you, Why has the Lord done all this evil against us? what is our wrongdoing and what is our sin which we have done against the Lord our God?

Up! go down to the potter's house, and there I will let my words come to your ears.

Then they said, Come, let us make a design against Jeremiah; for teaching will never be cut off from the priest, or wisdom from the wise, or the word from the prophet. Come, let us make use of his words for an attack on him, and let us give attention with care to what he says.

And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the way into the door of broken pots, and there say in a loud voice the words which I will give you;

The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send on this town and on all her towns all the evil which I have said; because they made their necks stiff, so that they might not give ear to my words.

And you, Pashhur, and all who are in your house, will go away prisoners: you will come to Babylon, and there your body will be put to rest, you and all your friends, to whom you said false words.

But if you do not give ear to these words, I give you my oath by myself, says the Lord, that this house will become a waste.

About the prophets. My heart is broken in me, all my bones are shaking; I am like a man full of strong drink, like a man overcome by wine; because of the Lord, and because of his holy words.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Do not give ear to the words which the prophets say to you: they give you teaching of no value: it is from themselves that their vision comes, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

But if they had been in my secret, then they would have made my people give ear to my words, turning them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

My ears have been open to what the prophets have said, who say false words in my name, saying, I have had a dream, I have had a dream, I have had a dream,

Is (my word) in the hearts of the prophets who give out false words, even the prophets of the deceit of their hearts?

For this cause I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who take my words, every one from his neighbour.

See, I am against the prophets of false dreams, says the Lord, who give them out and make my people go out of the way by their deceit and their uncontrolled words: but I did not send them or give them orders; and they will be of no profit to this people, says the Lord.

And you will no longer put people in mind of the word of weight of the Lord: for every man's word will be a weight on himself; for the words of the living God, of the Lord of armies, our God, have been twisted by you

So this is what the Lord of armies has said: Because you have not given ear to my words,

So, as a prophet, give out these words among them, and say to them, The voice of the Lord will be sounding like a lion from on high; he will send out his voice from his holy place, like the loud voice of a lion, against his flock; he will give a cry, like those who are crushing the grapes, against all the people of the earth.

And give ear to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you, getting up early and sending them, though you gave no attention;

And in the hearing of the priests and the prophets and all the people, Jeremiah said these words in the house of the Lord.

Then the priests and the prophets said to the rulers and to all the people, The right fate for this man is death; for he has said words against this town in your hearing.

Then Jeremiah said to all the rulers and to all the people, The Lord has sent me as his prophet to say against this house and against this town all the words which have come to your ears.

Only be certain that, if you put me to death, you will make yourselves and your town and its people responsible for the blood of one who has done no wrong: for truly, the Lord has sent me to you to say all these words in your ears.

Then the rulers and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, It is not right for this man to be put to death: for he has said words to us in the name of the Lord our God.

And there was another man who was a prophet of the Lord, Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against this town and against this land all the words which Jeremiah had said:

And when his words came to the ears of Jehoiakim the king and all his men of war and his captains, the king would have put him to death; but Uriah, hearing of it, was full of fear and went in flight into Egypt:

For they say false words to you, so that you may be sent away far from your land, and so that you may be forced out by me and come to destruction.

And I said to the priests and to all the people, This is what the Lord has said: Give no attention to the words of your prophets who say to you, See, in a very little time now the vessels of the Lord's house will come back again from Babylon: for what they say to you is false.

These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: By me the yoke of the king of Babylon has been broken.

The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do so: may the Lord give effect to the words which you have said, and let the vessels of the Lord's house, and all the people who have been taken away, come back from Babylon to this place.

The prophet whose words are of peace, when his words come true, will be seen to be a prophet whom the Lord has sent.

For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will send you away from off the face of the earth: this year death will overtake you, because you have said words against the Lord.

Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the responsible men among those who had been taken away, and to the priests and the prophets and to all the rest of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon;

Because they have not given ear to my words, says the Lord, when I sent to them my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you did not give ear, says the Lord.

Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.

For this cause the Lord has said, Truly I will send punishment on Shemaiah and on his seed; not a man of his family will have a place among this people, and he will not see the good which I am going to do to my people, says the Lord: because he has said words against the Lord.

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Put down in a book all the words which I have said to you.

And these are the words which the Lord said about Israel and about Judah.

Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God.

So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Again will these words be used in the land of Judah and in its towns, when I have let their fate be changed: May the blessing of the Lord be on you, O resting-place of righteousness, O holy mountain.

These are the words of the Lord, who has given the sun for a light by day, ordering the moon and stars for a light by night, who puts the sea in motion, causing the thunder of its waves; the Lord of armies is his name.

These are the words of the Lord, who is doing it, the Lord who is forming it, to make it certain; the Lord is his name;

And I will give the men who have gone against my agreement and have not given effect to the words of the agreement which they made before me, when the ox was cut in two and they went between the parts of it,

This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Go and say to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Is there no hope of teaching you to give ear to my words? says the Lord.

The orders which Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave to his sons to take no wine, are done, and to this day they take no wine, for they do the orders of their father: but I have sent my words to you, getting up early and sending them, and you have not given ear to me.

For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem all the evil which I said I would do to them: because I sent my words to them, but they did not give ear; crying out to them, but they gave no answer.

Take a book and put down in it all the words I have said to you against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations, from the day when my word came to you in the days of Josiah till this day.

Then Jeremiah sent for Baruch, the son of Neriah; and Baruch took down from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had said to him, writing them in a book.

So you are to go, reading there from the book, which you have taken down from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of the people in the Lord's house, on a day when they go without food, and in the hearing of all the men of Judah who have come out from their towns.

And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did as Jeremiah the prophet gave him orders to do, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

Then Baruch gave a public reading of the words of Jeremiah from the book, in the house of the Lord, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher square, as one goes in by the new doorway of the Lord's house, in the hearing of all the people.

And Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, after hearing all the words of the Lord from the book,

Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words which had come to his ears when Baruch was reading the book to the people.

Now it came about that, after hearing all the words, they said to one another in fear, We will certainly give the king an account of all these words.

And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did you put all these words down in writing from his mouth?

Then they went into the open square to the king; but the book they put away in the room of Elishama the scribe; and they gave the king an account of all the words.

But they had no fear and gave no signs of grief, not the king or any of his servants, after hearing all these words.

Then after the book, in which Baruch had put down the words of Jeremiah, had been burned by the king, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

Take another book and put down in it all the words which were in the first book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, put into the fire.

Then Jeremiah took another book, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who put down in it, from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which had been burned in the fire by Jehoiakim, king of Judah: and in addition a number of other words of the same sort.

But he and his servants and the people of the land did not give ear to the words of the Lord which he said by Jeremiah the prophet.

These are the words of the Lord: Whoever goes on living in this town will come to his death by the sword or through need of food or by disease: but whoever goes out to the Chaldaeans will keep his life out of the power of the attackers and be safe.

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, These are the words of the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel: If you go out to the king of Babylon's captains, then you will have life, and the town will not be burned with fire, and you and your family will be kept from death:

Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, Let no man have knowledge of these words, and you will not be put to death.

Then all the rulers came to Jeremiah, questioning him: and he gave them an answer in the words the king had given him orders to say. So they said nothing more to him; for the thing was not made public.

Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, my words will come true for this town, for evil and not for good: they will come about before your eyes on that day.

And said to them, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to put your request before him:

And it came about that when Jeremiah had come to the end of giving all the people the words of the Lord their God, which the Lord their God had sent him to say to them, even all these words,

And this will be the sign to you, says the Lord, that I will give you punishment in this place, so that you may see that my words will certainly have effect against you for evil:

The words which Jeremiah the prophet said to Baruch, the son of Neriah, when he put these words down in a book from the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah; he said,

I have knowledge of his wrath, says the Lord, that it is nothing; his high-sounding words have done nothing.

About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the Lord: Has Israel no sons? has he no one to take the heritage? why then has Milcom taken Gad for himself, putting his people in its towns?

For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

We are shamed because bitter words have come to our ears; our faces are covered with shame: for men from strange lands have come into the holy places of the Lord's house.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words;