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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 33-35.

During much of the time when Jeremiah prophesied, the land of Judah (and the rest of Israel) was a war ravaged land; It was desolate and barren.  Even the Recabites, a clan of the Israelites which had maintained a nomadic lifestyle, had moved into the city of Jerusalem.  Yet, Jeremiah prophesies that God will restore Jerusalem and the entire land of Israel.  The day will come when the people of Israel in the land of Israel will bring glory to God’s name.  When I look at the world of today, with the new agreement which Israel has reached with the United Arab Emirates, I wonder if perhaps God is about to fulfill this prophecy.  Certainly, there are still ways in which the people of the modern nation of Israel anger God, but that does not mean that God’s Spirit is not working to bring this prophecy to fulfillment. (Of course, there is a part of me which suspects that this prophecy figuratively applies to the Christian Church).

I intended to write about Jeremiah’s interaction with the Recabites and their faithfulness, but the more I thought, trying to put together my thoughts in order to write, the more I thought the account of the elites of Jerusalem freeing, then re-enslaving, their slaves seemed to speak to today.  The elites of  Jerusalem acknowledged that the way that they treated their Hebrew slaves was sinful and entered into a binding covenant to free them.  However, as soon as the public attention had turned to other things, they re-enslaved their recently freed slaves.  This reminds me of the ways in which many of the elites of today act.  They publicly acknowledge that the way in which they treat the poor and powerless is wrong and vow to make changes (although, they rarely admit that they themselves have done this wrong), yet as soon as the public attention is turned to other things, they change the rules in ways that allow them to resume their former practices.  God is not fooled, and eventually even the most gullible person catches on as well.