In the thirteenth year of King Josiah of Judah, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, a young priest of the village of Anathoth a few miles north of Jerusalem. 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'
Jeremiah protested: 'Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.' The LORD answered: 'Do not say, I am only a youth; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.' Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched Jeremiah's mouth: 'Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms.' Jeremiah would prophesy for forty years, through the Babylonian conquest and the destruction of the Temple, into the exile in Egypt where tradition holds he was eventually stoned to death. His passage on prenatal divine election (Jer 1:5) is among the foundational scriptural texts in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology of the personhood of the unborn.