UNROLL
Dusk over the wooded hills of Gilead seen across the Jordan valley: dark oak woods on the far heights, the river’s thicket in shadow below.

The temple gate

Jeremiah 8

The book doesn’t date this oracle. Where do you go when the hurt won’t heal?

22 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 GodChapter 8
  4. 11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessions
  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

Judah’s Sin and Punishment

God

“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground. And wherever I have banished them, the remnant of this evil family will choose death over life,” declares the LORD of Hosts.

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God

So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says: “Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.

God
A single riderless war horse gallops headlong across a dusty plain, mane flying, neck stretched, dust thrown up behind it, nothing but open ground ahead.

I have listened and heard;

they do not speak what is right.

No one repents of his wickedness,

asking, ‘What have I done?’

Everyone has pursued his own course

like a horse charging into battle.

God
Spring over the Jordan valley: a long loose line of white storks glides north high in a pale sky, black wingtips spread, the green valley floor and bare hills far below.

Even the stork in the sky

knows her appointed seasons.

The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush

keep their time of migration,

but My people do not know

the requirements of the LORD.

God
God

How can you say, ‘We are wise,

and the Law of the LORD is with us,’

when in fact the lying pen of the scribes

has produced a deception?

The wise will be put to shame;

they will be dismayed and trapped.

Since they have rejected the word of the LORD,

what wisdom do they really have?

God

Therefore I will give their wives to other men

and their fields to new owners.

For from the least of them to the greatest,

all are greedy for gain;

from prophet to priest,

all practice deceit.

They dress the wound of the daughter of My people

with very little care,

saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

when there is no peace at all.

Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed?

No, they have no shame at all;

they do not even know how to blush.

So they will fall among the fallen;

when I punish them, they will collapse,

says the LORD.

God
Late summer on a hill terrace: a fig tree with no fruit, its broad leaves yellowed and curling, and a vine with no grapes along the terrace wall below, its leaves dry and brown.

I will take away their harvest,

declares the LORD.

There will be no grapes on the vine,

nor figs on the tree,

and even the leaf will wither.

Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.”

Question

Quick question

God points His people to the birds that pass over the land every spring and autumn. Look back at 8:7.

Which bird does 8:7 say knows her appointed seasons?

The People Respond

The people of Judah

Why are we just sitting here?

Gather together,

let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there,

for the LORD our God has doomed us.

He has given us poisoned water to drink,

because we have sinned against the LORD.

We hoped for peace,

but no good has come,

for a time of healing,

but there was only terror.

Jeremiah

The snorting of enemy horses

is heard from Dan.

At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,

the whole land quakes.

They come to devour the land and everything in it,

the city and all who dwell in it.

God

“For behold, I will send snakes among you,

vipers that cannot be charmed,

and they will bite you,”

declares the LORD.

Jeremiah Weeps for His People

Jeremiah
Dusk on a flat roof in Jerusalem: a lean man in a dark mantle sits alone on the low parapet, seen from the side, head bowed into his hands, the city’s roofs and the temple height darkening behind him.

My sorrow is beyond healing;

my heart is faint within me.

Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people

from a land far away:

“Is the LORD no longer in Zion?

Is her King no longer there?”

0:18

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

“Why have they provoked Me to anger

with their carved images,

with their worthless foreign idols?”

The people of Judah
The end of summer in a Judean valley: stubble fields and bare threshing floors, the fig and grape terraces picked clean, dry grass, a hot hazy sky, no one there.

“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended,

but we have not been saved.”

Jeremiah

For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed.

I mourn; horror has gripped me.

Jeremiah
Close on a flat rock: a small clay flask with a narrow neck and a dab of golden resin on its rim, a folded linen bandage beside it, and beyond the Jordan the wooded hills of Gilead in soft light.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

not been restored?

Pray

Pray

LORD, my heart is faint for those I love who are far from You. You are the balm and the Physician. Heal what I cannot heal, and let none of us say the harvest has passed and we are not saved. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 8

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A verse to carry with you

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?

Jeremiah 8:22

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