But now, Lord God, you tell me, ‘Buy the field with silver and call in witnesses.’ You tell me this while the Babylonian army is ready to capture the city.”
I will send war, hunger, and disease against them. I will attack them until they have all been killed. Then they will no longer be in the land I gave to them and their ancestors.’ ”
This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: In the future my people will once again buy houses and fields for grain and vineyards in the land of Israel.’
“Look! The enemy has surrounded the city and has built roads to the top of the walls to capture it. Because of war, hunger, and terrible diseases, the city will be handed over to the Babylonians who are attacking it. You said this would happen, and now you see it is happening.
You are saying, ‘This land is an empty desert, without people or animals. It has been handed over to the Babylonians.’ But in the future, people will again buy fields in this land.
“Then it happened just as the Lord had said. My cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said to me, ‘Buy for yourself my field near Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. It is your right and duty to buy it and own it.’ So I knew this was a message from the Lord.
“So this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me. You have not given freedom to your fellow Hebrews, neither relatives nor friends. But now I will give freedom, says the Lord, to war, to terrible diseases, and to hunger. I will make you hated by all the kingdoms of the earth.