Jeremiah and Hananiah

Yahweh told Jeremiah to make bonds and bars and place them on his neck like a yoke. He was to send this message to the kings around Judah and speak the same warning to King Zedekiah. The God who made the earth, its people, and its animals had given these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon for a time.

Jeremiah warned that any nation refusing Babylon's yoke would face sword, famine, and pestilence. They were not to listen to prophets, diviners, dreams, soothsayers, or sorcerers who said they would not serve Babylon. A nation that accepted the yoke would be allowed to remain in its own land and live there.

Jeremiah gave the same warning to Zedekiah, to the priests, and to the people in Jerusalem. He said they should serve the king of Babylon and live, instead of believing prophets who said the temple vessels would soon return. Jeremiah said the vessels still left in Jerusalem would also be carried to Babylon until Yahweh chose to visit and restore them.

That same year, in Yahweh's house, Hananiah son of Azzur from Gibeon spoke before the priests and all the people. He said Yahweh had broken Babylon's yoke and that within two full years the temple vessels, King Jeconiah, and the captives of Judah would return. Jeremiah answered that he wished it were so, but a prophet promising peace would be shown true only if his word happened.

Then Hananiah took the bar from Jeremiah's neck and broke it, saying Babylon's yoke would be broken within two full years. Later Yahweh told Jeremiah to go back and say, "You have broken bars of wood, but you have made bars of iron in their place." Hananiah had not been sent by Yahweh but had made the people trust a lie. Jeremiah said Hananiah would die that year, and in the seventh month he died. Which voice would the people trust?