Jeremiah

Jeremiah is the twenty-fourth book of the Bible and the second of the major prophets. It is the longest book in the Bible by word count and is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who prophesied in Jerusalem from around 627 BC through the Babylonian destruction of the city in 586 BC and beyond. Much of the book is written in the first person; some sections are biographical, written by Jeremiah's scribe Baruch.

Jeremiah is sometimes called "the weeping prophet" because of the grief that runs through his book. He is called by God as a young man to deliver a message no one wants to hear: that Judah's unfaithfulness will bring Babylonian conquest, that the temple will fall, and that the only right response is to surrender to the Babylonians and accept exile.

He delivers this message for forty years. He is mocked, beaten, thrown into a cistern, locked in stocks, and accused of treason. He records the kings of Judah ignoring him in turn. He is forbidden by God to marry or attend funerals as a sign of the coming disaster.

When the Babylonians finally come, the city falls just as Jeremiah said it would. He is released by the Babylonians, who treat him kindly. The remaining Judeans take him with them when they flee to Egypt, against his advice. The book ends with him still in Egypt, still prophesying. The closing chapter is a historical appendix describing the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile.