Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 19-22.

As I read today’s passage it seems to me that Jeremiah began his career as a prophet believing that the people would listen to the prophecies which God gave him and turn from their sins.  Perhaps he even began to prophesy as part of King Josiah’s reforms, or perhaps he inspired those reforms.  I think he saw what was going on under King Josiah and hoped that the people would follow through and put aside all of their idol worship and truly turn to God.  When he saw that this was not going to be the case, he tried to keep silent but found that he could not.  I understand that.  I also from time to time vow to let things go and find that I cannot.  Of course, I don’t have the excuse that the Holy Spirit is working through me. I’m just opinionated and stubborn. By the way, that is not me being self-deprecating.  I have never had any reason to believe that I am a prophet, and many of the things I cannot keep my mouth shut about are things which have no bearing on serving God (and some of the things I say I know are things which God would not want me to say).

When reading the Book of Jeremiah, it is important to realize that the Book was not written down as Jeremiah made these prophecies.  Most of it was written down shortly before the fall of Jerusalem (or possibly written down about then after the original copy was destroyed).  As a result, not all of the prophecies are recorded in the chronological order they were given.  In any case, Jeremiah prophesied to King Zedekiah, the last king before the fall of Jerusalem, that the fall and destruction of Jerusalem was no longer avoidable.  Yet, just a few sentences later, he prophesies that if the rulers of Jerusalem begin administering justice every morning and rescue people from the hand of the oppressor God will not follow through.  All of this is consistent with what Jeremiah prophesied a few chapters back when God told him that if a nation He had decided to destroy turned away from their sin to Him, He would relent.  So, while I look at our society and think that perhaps we have gone too far and it is too late to avoid the coming disaster and suffering, this passage suggests that there is always time to benefit from doing God’s will and, if people turn to Him, they always have an opportunity to avoid the worst of the suffering.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.