Morning in a Jerusalem lane looking up at the king’s house: a broad flat-roofed palace of fine cut stone with a new upper story, wide window openings framed in cedar, one beam painted bright vermilion, workmen’s poles still leaning against it.

Shepherds and prophets

Jeremiah 22

What would someone say your life shows you value most?

30 verses≈ 6 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 confessions
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letterChapter 22
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

A Warning to Judah’s Kings

God

This is what the LORD says: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this message there, saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David—you and your officials and your people who enter these gates.

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God

Morning in the palace gate passage: a widow in a dark-blue wool dress sits on a stone bench with her small son leaning on her, a dusty foreign traveler with a staff and bundle waiting beside them, the inner court bright beyond.

This is what the LORD says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.

God

For if you will indeed carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this palace riding on chariots and horses—they and their officials and their people.

God

But if you do not obey these words, then I swear by Myself, declares the LORD, that this house will become a pile of rubble.’”

A Warning about the Palace

God

Dusk in a palace courtyard: great squared cedar beams pulled down and lying in a heap, one end smoldering with thin smoke, carved panels among them, axes at rest on the paving.

For this is what the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

“You are like Gilead to Me,

like the summit of Lebanon;

but I will surely turn you into a desert,

like cities that are uninhabited.

I will appoint destroyers against you,

each man with his weapons,

and they will cut down the choicest of your cedars

and throw them into the fire.

God

And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’

Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

A Warning about Shallum

Jeremiah

Jeremiah

Do not weep for him who is dead;

do not mourn his loss.

Weep bitterly for him who is exiled,

for he will never return

to see his native land.

God

For this is what the LORD says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return, but he will die in the place to which he was exiled; he will never see this land again.”

Question

Quick question

Verse 11 names a king many readers have never heard of. Josiah’s sons are about to be judged one by one.

Who was Shallum?

A Warning about Jehoiakim

God

Does it make you a king to excel in cedar?

Did not your father have food and drink?

He administered justice and righteousness,

and so it went well with him.

God

He took up the cause of the poor and needy,

and so it went well with him.

Is this not what it means to know Me?”

declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 22:16

God

“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing

except your own dishonest gain,

on shedding innocent blood,

on practicing extortion and oppression.”

God

Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:

“They will not mourn for him:

‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’

They will not mourn for him:

‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’

God

He will be buried like a donkey,

dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.

God

Evening from the high ridge of the Abarim mountains east of the Jordan: the deep rift below in haze, the Dead Sea a pale sheet, the hills of Judah dim far to the west.

Go up to Lebanon and cry out;

raise your voice in Bashan;

cry out from Abarim,

for all your lovers have been crushed.

God

The wind will drive away all your shepherds,

and your lovers will go into captivity.

Then you will be ashamed and humiliated

because of all your wickedness.

God

God

O inhabitant of Lebanon,

nestled in the cedars,

how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you,

agony like a woman in labor.”

Pray

Lord, You said that to know You is to take up the cause of the poor and needy. Keep me from building my own house without justice. Let my life show that I know You. Amen.

A Warning to Coniah

God

Close in low light on a bare stone ledge: a heavy gold signet ring with a carved stone seal face lying alone, beside a small lump of clay with no impression.

“As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would pull you off.

0:10

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

God

In fact, I will hand you over to those you dread, who want to take your life—to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldeans. I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another land, where neither of you were born—and there you both will die.

God

You will never return to the land for which you long.”

Jeremiah

Close on a rubbish slope outside a city gate in gray light: a plain fired clay storage jar cracked through and broken open, lying among old shards and dry weeds, the wall’s foot above.

Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered pot,

a jar that no one wants?

Why are he and his descendants hurled out

and cast into a land they do not know?

Jeremiah

God

This is what the LORD says:

“Enroll this man as childless,

a man who will not prosper in his lifetime.

None of his descendants will prosper

to sit on the throne of David

or to rule again in Judah.”

Josiah’s sons

Whiteboard

Each king after Josiah was further from justice, and the line of kings ran out. The next word is the King God Himself will raise.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 22

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A verse to carry with you

He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well with him. Is this not what it means to know Me?” declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 22:16

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