Jeremiah 14
14
Time and Again We’ve Betrayed God
1-6 God’s Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought:
“Judah weeps,
her cities mourn.
The people fall to the ground, moaning,
while sounds of Jerusalem’s sobs rise up, up.
The rich people sent their servants for water.
They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry.
They came back with empty buckets,
wringing their hands, shaking their heads.
All the farm work has stopped.
Not a drop of rain has fallen.
The farmers don’t know what to do.
They wring their hands, they shake their heads.
Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field
because there is no grass—
Eyes glazed over, on her last legs,
nothing but skin and bones.”
7-9We know we’re guilty. We’ve lived bad lives—
but do something, God. Do it for your sake!
Time and time again we’ve betrayed you.
No doubt about it—we’ve sinned against you.
Hope of Israel! Our only hope!
Israel’s last chance in this trouble!
Why are you acting like a tourist,
taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?
Why do you just stand there and stare,
like someone who doesn’t know what to do in a crisis?
But God, you are, in fact, here, here with us!
You know who we are—you named us!
Don’t leave us without a leg to stand on.
10Then God said of these people:
“Since they loved to wander this way and that,
never giving a thought to where they were going,
I will now have nothing more to do with them—
except to note their guilt and punish their sins.”
The Killing Fields
11-12 God said to me, “Don’t pray that everything will turn out all right for this people. When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won’t listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I’ll not accept them. I’m finishing them off with war and famine and disease.”
13I said, “But Master, God! Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right—no war and no famine—that there’s nothing to worry about.”
14Then God said, “These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.
15-16“So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, ‘War and famine will never come here’—these preachers will die in war and by starvation. And the people to whom they’ve been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied—no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I’ll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.
17-18“And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them:
“‘My eyes pour out tears.
Day and night, the tears never quit.
My dear, dear people are battered and bruised,
hopelessly and cruelly wounded.
I walk out into the fields,
shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses.
I walk into the city,
shocked by the sight of starving bodies.
And I watch the preachers and priests
going about their business as if nothing’s happened!’”
19-22God, have you said your final No to Judah?
Can you simply not stand Zion any longer?
If not, why have you treated us like this,
beaten us nearly to death?
We hoped for peace—
nothing good came from it;
We looked for healing—
and got kicked in the stomach.
We admit, O God, how badly we’ve lived,
and our ancestors, how bad they were.
We’ve sinned, they’ve sinned,
we’ve all sinned against you!
Your reputation is at stake! Don’t quit on us!
Don’t walk out and abandon your glorious Temple!
Remember your covenant.
Don’t break faith with us!
Can the no-gods of the godless nations cause rain?
Can the sky water the earth by itself?
You’re the one, O God, who does this.
So you’re the one for whom we wait.
You made it all,
you do it all.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Jeremiah 14
14
1 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the words of the drought.
2 "Judea has mourned. And its gates have fallen and become hard to discern on the ground. And the outcry of Jerusalem has ascended.
3 The greater ones have sent their lesser ones to the water. They went to draw water; they did not find water; they carried their vessels back empty. They were confounded and afflicted, and so they covered their heads.
4 Because of the devastation of the earth, because rain did not fall upon the earth, the farmers were confounded; they covered their heads.
5 For even the doe has given birth in the field, and then left it behind. For there was no grass.
6 And the wild donkeys stood upon the rocks; like dragons, they drew in the wind, but their eyes failed. For there was no grass."
7 "O Lord, if our iniquities have responded against us, let it be for the sake of your name. For our rebellions are many; we have sinned against you.
8 O Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of tribulation, why would you be like a sojourner in the land, and like a traveler turning aside for lodging?
9 Why would you be like a wandering man, like a strong man who is unable to save? But you, O Lord, are with us, and your name is invoked over us, so do not abandon us!"
10 Thus says the Lord to this people, who have loved to move their feet, and who have not rested, but who have not pleased the Lord: "Now he will remember their iniquities, and now he will visit against their sins."
11 And the Lord said to me: "Do not choose to pray for this people for good.
12 When they will fast, I will not heed their petitions. And if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not accept them. For I will consume them by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence."
13 And I said: "Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! The prophets are saying to them: 'You will not see the sword, and there will be no famine among you. Instead, he will give you true peace in this place.' "
14 And the Lord said to me: "The prophets prophesy falsely in my name. I did not send them, and I did not instruct them, and I have not spoken to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, and a divination, and a fraud, and a seduction from their own heart.
15 For this reason, thus says the Lord about the prophets who prophesy in my name, whom I have not sent, who say: 'Sword and famine will not be in this land.' By sword and famine those prophets will be consumed.
16 And the people, to whom they prophesy, will be cast into the streets of Jerusalem, due to famine and the sword, and there will be no one who may bury them, they and their wives, their sons and daughters, and I will pour out their own evil upon them.
17 And you shall speak this word to them: Let my eyes shed tears throughout the night and day, and let them not cease. For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed by a great affliction, by a very grievous wound."
18 "If I go out into the fields: behold, those slain by the sword. And if I enter into the city: behold, those weakened by famine. Likewise, the prophet, too, and the priest, have gone into a land that they did not know.
19 Could you have utterly cast out Judah? Or has your soul abhorred Zion? Then why have you struck us, so much so that there is no health for us? We have waited for peace, but there is nothing good, and for the time of healing, and behold, trouble.
20 O Lord, we acknowledge our impieties, the iniquities of our fathers, that we have sinned against you.
21 For the sake of your name, do not give us over into disgrace. And do not dishonor in us the throne of your glory. Remember, do not make void, your covenant with us.
22 Could any of the graven images of the Gentiles send rain? Or are the heavens able to give showers? Have we not hoped in you, the Lord our God? For you have made all these things."
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