UNROLL
Morning in a deep limestone gorge: a clear stream running over pale stones between rock walls with dark crevices, a few green reeds, nobody there.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 13

What were you made to cling to, and have let go of?

27 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 13
  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 Linen Loincloth

God
God

This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”

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Jeremiah

So I bought a loincloth in accordance with the word of the LORD, and I put it around my waist.

God

Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time: “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to Perath and hide it there in a crevice of the rocks.”

Jeremiah
God

Then the word of the LORD came to me: “This is what the LORD says: In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

God

For just as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I have made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, declares the LORD, so that they might be My people for My renown and praise and glory. But they did not listen.

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah buried a new linen cloth and dug it up ruined. Then the LORD explained the sign in 13:9–11.

What did the ruined loincloth stand for?

The Wineskins

God

Therefore you are to tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every wineskin shall be filled with wine.’

God
A dim stone storeroom: goatskin wineskins hanging full and taut on wooden pegs in a row, a shaft of light from the door.

And when they reply, ‘Don’t we surely know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’

then you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land—the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the people of Jerusalem.

God

I will smash them against one another, fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no mercy or pity or compassion to keep Me from destroying them.’”

Captivity Threatened

Jeremiah

Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant,

for the LORD has spoken.

Jeremiah

Give glory to the LORD your God

before He brings darkness,

before your feet stumble

on the dusky mountains.

Jeremiah 13:16

Jeremiah
Dusk falling over terraced hills: a traveler’s path winding into gloom between dark ridges, the last light failing in the west.

You wait for light,

but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.

Jeremiah

But if you do not listen,

I will weep in secret because of your pride.

My eyes will overflow with tears,

because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

God
An empty palace court in Jerusalem: two plain narrow gold circlets lying in the dust at the foot of a low stone seat.

Say to the king

and to the queen mother:

“Take a lowly seat,

for your glorious crowns have fallen from your heads.”

God

The cities of the Negev have been shut tight,

and no one can open them.

All Judah has been carried into exile,

wholly taken captive.

God

Lift up your eyes and see

those coming from the north.

Where is the flock entrusted to you,

the sheep that were your pride?

God

What will you say when He sets over you

close allies whom you yourself trained?

Will not pangs of anguish grip you,

as they do a woman in labor?

God

And if you ask yourself,

“Why has this happened to me?”

It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity

that your skirts have been stripped off

and your body has been exposed.

God

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good— you who are accustomed to doing evil.

God

“I will scatter you like chaff

driven by the desert wind.

This is your lot,

the portion I have measured to you,”

declares the LORD,

“because you have forgotten Me

and trusted in falsehood.

God

So I will pull your skirts up over your face,

that your shame may be seen.

God

Your adulteries and lustful neighings,

your shameless prostitution

on the hills and in the fields—

I have seen your detestable acts.

Woe to you, O Jerusalem!

How long will you remain unclean?”

Pray

Pray

LORD my God, You made me to cling to You. I cannot change my own heart, but You can. Turn my pride into praise, and let me give You glory before the dark comes. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 13

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A verse to carry with you

Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains.

Jeremiah 13:16

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