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The Utter Corruption of God’s People5 Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. 2 Although they say, “As the L ord lives,” yet they swear falsely. 3 O L ord, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back.
4 Then I said, “These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the L ord, the law of their God. 5 Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the L ord, the law of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.
6 Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces— because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.
7 How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. 8 They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife. 9 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
10 Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the L ord’s. 11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the L ord. 12 They have spoken falsely of the L ord, and have said, “He will do nothing. No evil will come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine.” 13 The prophets are nothing but wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!
14 Therefore thus says the L ord, the God of hosts: Because they have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them. 15 I am going to bring upon you a nation from far away, O house of Israel, says the L ord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. 16 Their quiver is like an open tomb; all of them are mighty warriors. 17 They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; they shall destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
18 But even in those days, says the L ord, I will not make a full end of you. 19And when your people say, “Why has the L ord our God done all these things to us?” you shall say to them, “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
20 Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah: 21 Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear. 22 Do you not fear me? says the L ord; Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it. 23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. 24 They do not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the L ord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.” 25 Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have deprived you of good. 26 For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. 27 Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, 28 they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. 29 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: 31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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God shews here how intolerable to him was their wantonness in despising the prophets, through whom he would have himself attended to. Though Christ did not refer to this passage, when he said, “He who hears you hears me, yet it contains an eternal law; for God’s will from the beginning has been, that his servants should be obeyed, as though he himself had come down from heaven. Hence the Jews dealt no less contumeliously with God in despising his prophets, than if they had dared to treat God himself with contempt. God then now shews how much he abhorred that madness, through which they rendered void all the labors of his servants. Therefore thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts Jeremiah made this preface, that he might more effectually rouse the Jews; for if he had omitted Thus saith Jehovah, and had begun thus, “Because ye have announced this word, behold, as fire shall be the word of God, “his doctrine would have been objected to, and treated with contempt. But now, by alleging the name of God, and that not simply, but by adorning it with a high attribute, and calling him “the God of hosts, “he makes known his power in order to strike them with fear. He then says, “Thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, Because ye have spoken this word, “etc. Here he changes the persons often; and it behooved him to do so, that there might be more force and point in what he said. He ought to have said in the third person, “Because they have spoken thus, Behold, I will make my words in thy mouth, “etc.: but he now addresses the people, and then he turns to his servant Jeremiah. He therefore says, “Ye have indeed spoken thus;” that is, “Ye have scoffingly spoken, as though my prophets had nothing but the empty sound of words;” Behold, he says, I will make my words in thy mouth like fire, (he thus addresses the Prophet,) and this people shall be wood, and the fire shall devour them God compares his own word to fire, not as in other places, nor for the same reason; but this similitude has a particular meaning, — that the prophetic word would consume the people as fire consumes dry wood or straw. In other places the word of God is called fire, because it kindles the hearts of men, because it cleanses or burns the filth within. But he treats not here of the benefit or the fruit which the faithful derive from God’s word: but God declares only that the doctrine of the Prophet would prove fatal to the people; and hence he expressly says, “I make my words in thy mouth like fire.” Had he said, “Behold, my words shall be like fire, and this people shall be stubble, “it would not have been sufficiently expressive. But as the people had been accustomed to scoff and say, “Ah! what are these prophets, and what are their words? they beat the air only;” as then the Jews had been wont to speak in this manner, he now replies to them, and says, “I will make my words in thy mouth like fire;” that is, Thy tongue alone shall be more than sufficient to destroy the whole people. Jeremiah teaches here the same thing with Paul, when he said, “We have vengeance in readiness against all altitude which rises against the gospel.” For it has ever been an evil, common to all ages, either to neglect, or wholly to despise the servants of God. When Paul saw that the gospel was despised by many, he said that he and other ministers had vengeance in readiness; as though he had said, “As many words as we speak shall be so many swords to slay all the ungodly; and though their hardness now reject the judgment of God, their perverseness shall avail them nothing. Let them now then know that there is so much power in my word, as though God were openly to put forth his hand from heaven, as though he were to dart forth his lightnings.” The same thing is what Jeremiah means here, Behold, he says, I will make my words in thy mouth fire; that is, there will be so much power in thy words, that the ungodly shall know to their own loss that thou art the executioner of my vengeance. This passage ought to be carefully observed by us, lest by our ingratitude we shall so provoke God’s wrath against us, as that his word, which is destined for our food, shall be turned to be a fire to us. For why has God appointed the ministers of his gospel, except to invite us to become partakers of his salvation, and thus sweetly to restore and refresh our souls? And thus the word of God is to us like water to revive our hearts: it is also a fire, but for our good, a cleansing, and not a consuming fire: but if we obstinately reject this fire, it will surely turn to answer another end, even to devour us, and wholly to consume us. But he says that this people would be wood: as the ungodly set up an iron front against God, they think they can thus drive to a distance his vengeance; the Prophet now laughs to scorn this madness, and says that they would be like wood or straw. It follows — |