UNROLL
Evening on a terraced hillside above a small village: one broad old olive tree heavy with dark fruit, its silver leaves catching the low light, flat stone roofs below.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 11

What have you said ‘Amen’ to that you quietly stopped doing?

23 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
  2. 2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
  3. 7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
  4. 11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessionsChapter 11
  5. 21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
  6. 30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
  7. 34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
  8. 40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
  9. 46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
  10. 52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Broken Covenant

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

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God

“Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

God
A squat clay smelting furnace in a dusty yard, its mouth glowing orange, two goatskin bellows lying beside it, charcoal and dark slag on the ground.

You must tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant, which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.’

God

Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.

Jeremiah 11:4

God
God

This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.”

Jeremiah

“Amen, LORD,” I answered.

God

Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

God

For from the time I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt until today, I strongly warned them again and again, saying, ‘Obey My voice.’

God

Yet they would not obey or incline their ears, but each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant I had commanded them to follow but they did not keep.”

God

And the LORD told me, “There is a conspiracy among the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem. They have returned to the sins of their forefathers who refused to obey My words. They have followed other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their fathers.

God

Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to bring upon them a disaster that they cannot escape. They will cry out to Me, but I will not listen to them.

God

Then the cities of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to which they have been burning incense, but these gods certainly will not save them in their time of disaster.

God
Dusk across terraced hill country: hill town after hill town on its rise, and beside each a small stone shrine sending up a thin thread of incense smoke into the still air.

Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

God

As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me in their time of disaster.

God

What right has My beloved in My house,

having carried out so many evil schemes?

Can consecrated meat avert your doom? When you are wicked,

then you rejoice.

God
Morning after a storm on a hillside terrace: a broad old olive tree with half its crown burned black, charred branches still smoking, green fruit left on the lower boughs.

The LORD once called you a flourishing olive tree,

beautiful with well-formed fruit.

But with a mighty roar He will set it on fire,

and its branches will be consumed.

The LORD of Hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you on account of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have brought upon themselves, provoking Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.”

0:22

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Question

Quick question

The LORD has just set out the covenant: obey Me, and you will be My people. Look at the prophet’s reply in 11:5.

What did Jeremiah say when the LORD set out the covenant’s terms?

The covenant broken

soObey Me11:4: be My peopleWarned again11:7: again and againThey broke it11:10: other godsNo god can save11:12Do not pray11:14The olive onfire11:16

Whiteboard

The covenant had two sides. The LORD kept His; they kept their idols.

A Plot against Jeremiah

Jeremiah
Dusk in a narrow village lane: far off, three men lean close together in a doorway by the light of a small clay lamp, speaking low.

And the LORD informed me, so I knew.

Then You showed me their deeds.

Jeremiah
Early morning on a stony village lane: a young white lamb trots trustingly on a loose cord beside a man seen only from the knees down, looking up at him.

For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter;

I did not know that they had plotted against me:

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

that his name may be remembered no more.”

Jeremiah

O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously,

who examines the heart and mind,

let me see Your vengeance upon them,

for to You I have committed my cause.

God
Morning on a ridge in Benjamin: a small village of flat-roofed stone houses among pasture with goats, and to the east the bare wilderness falling away in pale folds toward the Jordan valley.

Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the people of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, “You must not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand.”

God

So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.

God

There will be no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

Pray

Pray

LORD of Hosts, You judge righteously and see the heart. When I am wronged, I commit my cause to You and do not take it into my own hands. Keep me gentle, and keep me Yours. Amen.

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Jeremiah 11

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A verse to carry with you

Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.

Jeremiah 11:4

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