shouting, ‘Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place. What’s more, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’
When they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and told them, ‘Your blood is on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’
In all the synagogues I often punished them and tried to make them blaspheme. Since I was terribly enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.
Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death; the whole community is to stone him. If he blasphemes the Name, he is to be put to death, whether the resident foreigner or the native.
Then the priests and prophets said to the officials and all the people, ‘This man deserves the death sentence because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.’
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.’