Let the Prophets Speak

In desperation, despite ignoring his message for years, King Zedekiah turns to the prophet for help. He asks for prayers from the prophet to save them from the Babylonians, hoping for divine intervention. God responds that the only divine intervention he can expect is retribution for their misdeed and punishment and defeat. God advises the people to flee for their lives, but for the leadership God...

Jeremiah is flogged and put into the stocks for preaching about injustice and violence. The pain and suffering becomes unbearable for Jeremiah. Going back and forth between faith and despair, we feel the prophet as he struggles with his fate.

God ignores Jeremiah's pleading to punish his tormentors, and instead gives him another thankless task. Smash a bottle in the Valley of ben-Hinnom, and prophecy again about the coming destruction.

God asks Jeremiah to observe a potter at work. Just as the potter decides when and how to break and refashion his pots, so can I God decide when to build and when to destroy. It depends on you though, says God. I can decree destruction, and if the people improve their ways I can build instead. However I can also declare success, and if the people turn to evil I will destroy instead. Despite this m...

Jeremiah prays that God demonstrate His justice, save me from my enemies! I am suffering for You God, I didn't want this mission!" God responds by giving Jeremiah another thankless mission. Go warn the people to honor the Sabbath! If they can do that, maybe they will be saved.

The sins of Judah are so ingrained that the punishment is inevtiable, as if they were engrained in tablets of iron. However, there is justice in God. have faith in God, and abandon faith in human beings and their arrogance. Only then will you flourish like a tree next to a stream. The true hope of Israel lies in God alone.

God commands Jeremiah not to marry, not to have a family, not to mourn the dead or celebrate with the living. The destruction is coming, and your life must reflect the life of someone who knows the terrible events that are about to happen. When this suffering is over, and one day it will be, people will be astounded that God could bring the people back to their land. Even more astounded than the w...

Jeremiah is exhausted, abused, and is almost ready to give up. He gets angry with God, and God guarantees his safety from his persecuters.

God declares that even if the great Moses and Samuel were praying for the people, they could not avert the decree of destruction. God then laments the destruction, He must do it, but it is oh so painful.

Famine and drought strike the land, and the people pray, but God won't listen anymore. They have passed the "point of no return". God instructs the prophet not to pray, but he prays anyway.

The prophet warns the people that the coming suffering will be overwhelming like aa intoxicated drunkenness. Jeremiah begs the people to please humble themselves before God and mend their ways before its too late. He then turns to the Kings and nobles and blames them for their failed leadership.

God asks Jeremiah to buy a linen belt, and neglect it and let it rot. The belt was a symbol of strength, but when neglected it became rotten and useless. So to the once proud people of Israel. They neglected to listen to God, and they lost their purpose.

Jeremiah , upon hearing of the plot to kill him, gets angry with God. Why do You allow evil to prosper like this? First he asks God to destroy the evildoers, but then the prophet argues out loud. Why all of this destruction? Why did you let them propser and become so evil? God responds, I love My people, it is they who deviated from the path I laid out for them. I will therefore hand them over to...

God reminds the people of the covenant He made with them when they were freed from Egypt. It was a two way deal, and the people haven't held up their end of the bargain. We also learn of the conspiracies of the people to murder the prophet Jeremiah. Easier to get rid of the messenger than to take heed of his painful message.

God's anger is imminent, the trouble is coming from babylon. Please God don;t allow Your wrath to consume us. Act with justice, and we deserve punishment, but we arent ALL bad. Turn your wrath against those who are too arrogant to ever call out Your name. They cause indiscriminate suffering, God however acts with justice.

God tells the circumcized Jews that it is not the physical circumcision that matters, but the purity of heart. The prophet then ridicules the folly of those who create an idol and then worship it and invent narratives and philosophies that are meaningless. The true God created us, not vice versa. He is all powerful, and cannot be compared to anything else in the world.

The prophet describes a society so full of corruption that one cannot even trust his own family. Backstabbing and slander have become a way of life. This God cannot stand for. God makes it very clear what He wants; justice, kindess, righteousness.

The prophet mourns over the destruction to come. The people are in despair, and the destruction decreed by God is inevitable.

God asks us, "Don't people get up after they fall? Why can't my people change their ways after they made mistakes?" The laws God gives are laws that are natural, a corrupt society will fail, just as birds know their seasons, My people should know how to behave. So why do they persist and refuse to admit their mistakes?

Prayer without any self improvement is disgusting to God. God tells us, "I am not interested in your prayers if you continue to live corrupt lives. When I took you out of Egypt, it was to create a special bond of holiness between us, I wanted you to go in my ways and live holy lives. I was never interested in your sacrifices. Take the meat and eat it youselves!"

This is just a house, God says of the Temple. Don;t think you can come in here and pray and be saved from your sins if you don't make an effort to change your ways and live proper lives. If you won't do justice for the less fortunate, don't come in here to pray.

You had so many ways to learn the right path, but you chose not to listen. God turns to the nations of the world, indeed to all of nature. Why am I punishing the people who "worship" Me? Because the worship of fancy incense and sacrifices is not the type of worship I want. If you can't get rid of your impurities, your talebearing and your dishonesty, then to Me you are like silver that connot be p...

The prophet is exhausted. No one listens, no one pays any attention. Destruction is coming, and the people continue to pretend that there is nothing wrong. When people aren't even ashamed of their corrupt, lying ways, there is no hope left for change.

The people have been so convinced by the false prophets that everything was going to be OK, that when the punishment comes, they will exlaim, "Why?" So God tells the prophet to explain very clearly why, so they have no excuse. You are full of corruption, abuse of the poor, lying and stealing. Now that you know why you are getting punished, the prophet challenges the people, "What are you going to...

God challenges the prophet to find even one man who seeks justice and trustworthiness. Sadly, there are none. The people just won't listen, nothing will turn them back to God. If no one can save the people, not even Jeremiah himself, then God will unleash a mighty and powerful nation to come and destroy Judah.