UNROLL
Night in an empty courtyard made ready for a wedding: green garlands on the doorposts, unlit clay lamps on a ledge, a frame drum laid aside and mats rolled up, with nobody there.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 16

The book doesn’t date this oracle. What would it cost you to make your whole life a message?

21 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 16
  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

Disaster Predicted

God
Afternoon in a lane of Anathoth: a lean man in a dark mantle walks alone, seen from behind, past an open courtyard where small children play and a mother grinds grain.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.”

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God

For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land: “They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

God
Dusk at the open doorway of a stone house: inside, flat bread and a clay cup are set out on a mat for mourners by a small lit lamp; the lane outside is empty.

Indeed, this is what the LORD says: “Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal. Do not go to mourn or show sympathy, for I have removed from this people My peace, My loving devotion, and My compassion,” declares the LORD.

God

“Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

God

No food will be offered to comfort those who mourn the dead; not even a cup of consolation will be given for the loss of a father or mother.

God
Evening, seen from a dark lane through an open gate: a lamplit courtyard with a low table of bread, fruit and roast lamb, guests in bright robes far off; the lane in front is empty.

You must not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down with them to eat and drink.

God

For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.

God

When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’

God

Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.

God

And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you follows the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.

God
Seen from very far off at evening, a long thin line of small walking people with bundles and laden donkeys winds east across a wide brown plain, their dust lit gold by the low sun behind them.

So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

Question

Quick question

Three times in 16:1–9 the LORD tells Jeremiah what he must not do. Look back at verses 2, 5 and 8.

Which three things did the LORD forbid Jeremiah?

God Will Restore Israel

God

Yet behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt.’

God
Dawn on a long road winding south into the Judean hills: families with bundles and donkeys walk toward the light, children among them, far off.

Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their forefathers.

0:13

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God
Dawn on a rocky shore: fishermen's nets spread to dry over dark boulders, two small wooden boats drawn up on the stones, gulls overhead; no one there.

But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

God

For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.

God

And I will first repay them double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and they have filled My inheritance with their abominations.”

Jeremiah

O LORD, my strength and my fortress,

my refuge in the day of distress,

the nations will come to You

from the ends of the earth, and they will say,

“Our fathers inherited nothing but lies,

worthless idols of no benefit at all.

Jeremiah 16:19

Jeremiah
Afternoon at a carver's bench: a half-carved wooden figure of a god stands among chisels and curls of shavings, an unfinished stone figure behind it; no one worships.

Can man make gods for himself?

Such are not gods!”

God

“Therefore behold, I will inform them,

and this time I will make them know

My power and My might;

then they will know

that My name is the LORD.

Pray

Pray

O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress: bring the nations to You, and bring me home. Let my life speak of You, in joy and in grief. Amen.

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Jeremiah 16

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A verse to carry with you

O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

Jeremiah 16:19

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