Dawn in a paved courtyard of the king’s house in Jerusalem: foreign envoys’ saddled donkeys tethered by the gate, gift baskets and bales of cloth stacked on the stones beside a plain stone water basin; no one there yet.

Shepherds and prophets

Jeremiah 27

What if the thing you’re fighting is the thing God has asked you to carry?

22 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

Tap any post to go deeper

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 27
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 Yoke of Nebuchadnezzar

At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God

By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.

Jeremiah 27:5

God

Babylon’s great city gate faced with blue glazed brick, small plain lions and bulls in its brickwork, a broad processional road leading up to it, Babylonian soldiers small at the gate.

So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have even made the beasts of the field subject to him.

God

All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

God

God

As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.

God

But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums, or your sorcerers who declare, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ For they prophesy to you a lie that will serve to remove you from your land; I will banish you and you will perish.

God

God

But the nation that will put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave in its own land, to cultivate it and reside in it, declares the LORD.”

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Five envoys

Envoys of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon came to Zedekiah, most likely to talk of revolt against Babylon. Jeremiah met them with a yoke on his neck.

Jeremiah

And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live!

Jeremiah

Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

Jeremiah

Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say, ‘You must not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they are prophesying to you a lie.

God

For I have not sent them, declares the LORD, and yet they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah’s message to the five kings began with something he wore. Look back at 27:2.

What did the LORD tell Jeremiah to make and put on his neck?

Jeremiah

Then I said to the priests and to all this people, “This is what the LORD says: Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, very soon now the articles from the house of the LORD will be brought back from Babylon.’ They are prophesying to you a lie.

Jeremiah

If they are indeed prophets and the word of the LORD is with them, let them now plead with the LORD of Hosts that the articles remaining in the house of the LORD, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, not be taken to Babylon.

Jeremiah

In the temple court in morning light, the Sea, a huge round bronze basin with a lily-blossom rim, full of still water, rests on twelve bronze oxen in four groups of three facing outward; a priest stands small beside it.

For this is what the LORD of Hosts says about the pillars, the sea, the bases, and the rest of the articles that remain in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

God

God

Yes, this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about the articles that remain in the house of the LORD, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem: ‘They will be carried to Babylon and will remain there until the day I attend to them again,’ declares the LORD. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’”

Pray

Lord, You made the earth and give it to whom You please. When You lay a yoke on me, teach me to bear it and live, and not to listen to voices that promise an easy way out. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 27

0 of 52 chapters read

A verse to carry with you

By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.

Jeremiah 27:5

or swipe left