Noon in the walled courtyard of a fine stone house: tall storage jars along a shaded wall, a fig tree heavy with fruit, a woven rug on a stone bench, no one there.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 12

Does it ever look as if those who cut corners get ahead?

17 verses≈ 4 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessionsChapter 12
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Prosperity of the Wicked

Jeremiah

Righteous are You, O LORD,

when I plead before You.

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Jeremiah

Summer noon by a courtyard wall: a vigorous vine on a wooden trellis loaded with dark grapes, its trunk thick and deep-rooted in watered ground.

You planted them, and they have taken root.

They have grown and produced fruit.

You are ever on their lips,

but far from their hearts.

Jeremiah

But You know me, O LORD;

You see me and test my heart toward You.

Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter

and set them apart for the day of carnage.

Jeremiah

Late summer drought on terraced hills: terrace after terrace of withered gray grass and dead stubble, a dry stone water trough, an empty sky with no birds.

How long will the land mourn

and the grass of every field be withered?

Because of the evil of its residents,

the animals and birds have been swept away,

for the people have said,

“He cannot see what our end will be.”

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah has brought God his hardest question: why do the wicked prosper? Read the first words of God’s answer in 12:5.

How did the LORD answer Jeremiah’s question?

God’s Answer to Jeremiah

God

“If you have raced with men on foot

and they have worn you out,

how can you compete with horses?

If you stumble in a peaceful land,

how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

Jeremiah 12:5

God

Even your brothers—

your own father’s household—

even they have betrayed you;

even they have cried aloud against you.

Do not trust them,

though they speak well of you.

God

I have forsaken My house;

I have abandoned My inheritance.

I have given the beloved of My soul

into the hands of her enemies.

God

Dusk in the dense thickets of the Jordan’s floodplain: a maned lion half out of the tamarisk and reeds, head raised, roaring.

My inheritance has become to Me

like a lion in the forest.

She has roared against Me;

therefore I hate her.

God

God

Is not My inheritance to Me

like a speckled bird of prey

with other birds of prey circling against her?

Go, gather all the beasts of the field;

bring them to devour her.

God

A hillside vineyard trampled flat: vines broken in the mud, the low stone wall pushed down, hoofprints everywhere, a large flock moving off over the ridge.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard;

they have trampled My plot of ground.

They have turned My pleasant field

into a desolate wasteland.

They have made it a desolation;

desolate before Me, it mourns.

All the land is laid waste,

but no man takes it to heart.

God

Over all the barren heights in the wilderness

the destroyers have come,

for the sword of the LORD devours

from one end of the earth to the other.

No flesh has peace.

God

Dusk on a terraced field where wheat was sown: thorns and thistles standing tall where the grain should be, a wooden sickle lying at rest on the border stones.

They have sown wheat but harvested thorns.

They have exhausted themselves to no avail.

Bear the shame of your harvest

because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”

0:09

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Pray

Righteous are You, O LORD. When I see the wicked at ease, You still know me and test my heart toward You. Give me strength for the longer race, and keep my heart near You, not only my lips. Amen.

A Message for Israel’s Neighbors

God

This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them.

God

Dawn on a high tableland: far off, a family with two donkeys and a small flock walks home along a track toward a stone hill town among grain fields.

But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

God

And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people.

God

But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation; I will uproot it and destroy it, declares the LORD.”

The question and the answer

Whiteboard

God answered the question with Himself: His grief, His justice and His mercy to the nations.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 12

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A verse to carry with you

If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

Jeremiah 12:5

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