thing is that the earlier version of the address survived and was used by the Greek translator.(335) Verses 12-14, indicating the destruction of Babylon in her turn after seventy years, are, in whole or in part, generally taken as a post-exilic addition.(336) Omitting verse 14, the Greek inserts between 13 and 15 the Oracles on Foreign Nations, which the Hebrew postpones to Chs. XLVI. ff.(337) In the uncertain state of the text of 12-14 it is impossible to decide whether this was or was not the original position of those Oracles. The rest of the chapter, verses 15-38, is so full of expansions and repetitions, which we may partly see from a comparison of it with the Greek, as well as of inconsistencies with some earlier Oracles by Jeremiah,(338) of traces of the later prophetic style and of echoes of other prophets, that many deny any part of the miscellany to be Jeremiah’s own. Yet we must remember that his commission was not to Judah alone(339) but to _the nations_ as well, against many of which XXV. 15-38 is directed; and the figure of the Lord handing to the Prophet the cup of the wine of His wrath is not one which we have any reason to doubt to be Jeremiah’s. Sifting, by help of the Greek, the Hebrew list of nations who are to drink of the cup, we get Judah and Egypt; Askalon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; Dedan, Tema, Buz, and their _clipt_ neighbours in Arabia; all of whom were shaken in Jeremiah’s day by the Chaldean terror. Indeed the reference to Ashdod suits the condition of that Philistine city in the Prophet’s time better than its restored prosperity in the post-exilic age. The substance of verses 15-23 may therefore be reasonably left to Jeremiah. Verses 24-38 are more doubtful.(340) 2. Parables. (XIII, XVIII-XX, XXXV.) To the reign of Jehoiakim are usually referred a number of symbolic actions by Jeremiah, the narratives of which carry no dates. So far as they imply that the Prophet was still able to move openly about Jerusalem and the country they might be regarded as earlier than 604, when he was under restraint and had to hide himself.(341) But this is not certain. We are left to take them in the order in which they occur in the Book.