Jeremiah

Before You Were Born

Called young and protesting it. A almond branch and a boiling pot. Set over nations to pluck up and to plant — and told they will fight him and not prevail.

Two Evils

They have forsaken the spring of living water and dug out cisterns that can hold none. The charge laid out in the imagery of a marriage and a wandering.

Return, Backsliding Israel

An appeal rather than a sentence — return, and I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful.

The Whirlwind

Break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns. Then a vision of the land returning to formless and void — Genesis run backward.

Find One Person

Run through the streets and see whether you can find a man who does justly. Among the poor he finds ignorance; among the great, a broken yoke.

Peace, Peace

They have healed the wound of my people superficially, saying peace when there is no peace. Stand at the crossroads and ask for the ancient paths.

The Temple Sermon

Do not trust in lying words that say “the temple of the LORD.” If you thoroughly amend your ways, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow — then I will let you dwell here.

No Balm in Gilead

The birds know their seasons and my people do not know the ordinance of the LORD. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?

A Fountain of Tears

Oh that my head were waters. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty in his might, nor the rich in his riches — but in knowing the one who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth.

Idols and the Living God

Scarecrows in a cucumber field, that cannot speak and must be carried. Set against the one who made the earth by his power.

The Broken Covenant

A plot against him in his own home town of Anathoth — and his discovery that he was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, not knowing they had devised it.

Why Does the Way of the Wicked Prosper

His first direct complaint, and the answer is not an answer: if you have run with footmen and they wearied you, how can you contend with horses?

The Ruined Sash

A linen sash hidden in a rock cleft until it rots — and the question of whether an Ethiopian can change his skin or a leopard its spots.

The Drought

Nobles sending servants to empty cisterns. The doe abandoning her fawn because there is no grass. And the prophets who keep promising peace.

Why Is My Pain Perpetual

Your words were found and I ate them, and they were the joy of my heart — and then: why is my wound incurable? The answer tells him to return, not to be comforted.

Do Not Marry

Told not to marry, not to attend funerals, not to go to feasts — his whole personal life turned into a sign of a society about to lose all three.

The Heart Is Deceitful

Cursed is the man who trusts in man; blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD — a tree planted by the waters. Then the sabbath, and the gates of the city.

The Potter’s House

Sent to watch a potter rework a spoiled vessel on the wheel. Then a plot: let us strike him with the tongue, and pay no attention to any of his words.

The Broken Jar

A clay flask bought and smashed in front of the elders in the Valley of Hinnom — broken as a potter’s vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again.

You Deceived Me

Beaten and put in the stocks by Pashhur. Then the bitterest passage he wrote — and in the middle of it, the fire shut up in his bones that he cannot hold in.

The Question from the King

Zedekiah sends to ask whether God will act for them as before. The answer is no, and the choice offered is between the city and surrender.

Do Justice

Addressed to the royal house directly: deliver the robbed from the oppressor, do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow. Then the king who builds a palace with unpaid labour, set beside his father who judged the cause of the poor and needy — “was not this to know me?”

The Shepherds and the Prophets

Woe to the shepherds who scatter the sheep. Then prophets who steal words from one another and say “the LORD says” when he has not spoken.

Two Baskets of Figs

Good figs and figs too bad to eat — and the reversal, that the good are the ones already carried into exile.

Seventy Years

The span named. Then the cup of wine handed to nation after nation, beginning with Jerusalem.

On Trial for His Life

The temple sermon repeated, and the arrest that follows. The officials acquit him on precedent — and the chapter notes another prophet who said the same and was killed for it.

The Yoke

Wooden yoke bars made and worn, and messages sent to the surrounding kings: submit and live.

Hananiah

A rival prophet breaks the yoke off his neck and promises two years. Jeremiah says amen — and then comes back with an iron yoke.

The Letter to the Exiles

Build houses, plant gardens, marry, and seek the peace of the city where I have sent you — because in its peace you will have peace. Settle in; it will be seventy years.

The Book of Comfort Begins

Your wound is incurable, says the diagnosis — and then: I will restore health to you and heal your wounds, because they called you an outcast that no one seeks after.

The New Covenant

Rachel weeping and refusing comfort, and told to stop — there is hope for your future. Then the covenant written on hearts, with sins remembered no more.

Buying a Field

Under siege, in prison, with the Babylonians at the wall, he buys a field from his cousin and has the deed sealed in a clay jar — because houses and fields will be bought in this land again.

Call to Me

Things you do not know. The city that will yet be filled with the voice of joy and gladness, and the voice of the bride and bridegroom.

The Slaves Taken Back

A covenant made under siege to free every Hebrew slave — and then revoked the moment the pressure lifted. Among the sharpest indictments in the book.

The Rechabites

A family brought into the temple and offered wine, who refuse because their ancestor told them not to — held up as a comparison rather than a command.

The Scroll Burned

Baruch reads it in the temple. The officials take it seriously. The king cuts it column by column and throws it in the fire — and it is written again, with more added.

The Cistern Begins

Arrested at the gate on a false charge of deserting, beaten, and held in a dungeon. He asks the king not to send him back there, and is moved to the court of the guard.

The Mud

Lowered by ropes into a cistern with no water, only mud, and left to sink. Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian official, goes to the king and gets him out — with old rags sent down first to pad the ropes.

The City Falls

The wall breached, the king caught near Jericho, his sons killed in front of him and his eyes put out. And a word for Ebed-Melech: you will escape, because you put your trust in me.

After

Released from the chains at Ramah and given a choice of where to go. He stays with Gedaliah and the poorest of the land, who were left behind and given vineyards and fields.

Gedaliah Murdered

An assassination that undoes the fragile settlement — and eighty pilgrims killed on the road with it.

Ask, Then Don’t Listen

They swear to obey whatever answer comes, and wait ten days for it. The answer is: stay. They had already decided otherwise.

Into Egypt

Taken to Egypt against the word given, Jeremiah carried along with them. Stones hidden in the pavement at Tahpanhes as a sign that Babylon will come even there.

The Queen of Heaven

His last recorded confrontation. The people tell him plainly that things went better when they burned incense to the queen of heaven, and they intend to continue.

A Word for Baruch

Five verses, out of sequence, for the man who wrote it all down and said he was worn out with groaning: do not seek great things for yourself — but your life will be given to you as a prize.

Egypt

The oracles against the nations begin, with Carchemish and the defeat on the Euphrates.

Philistia

A short oracle — waters rising out of the north and becoming an overflowing flood.

Moab

Long, and unexpectedly grieved: my heart sounds for Moab like flutes. Judgment delivered by someone who is sorry about it.

Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Elam

Five shorter oracles — including the promise to Edom that God will preserve the fatherless left behind, and let the widows trust in him.

Babylon

The instrument becomes the defendant. My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray.

Babylon Continued

The longest oracle in the book, ending with the scroll tied to a stone and thrown into the Euphrates — thus shall Babylon sink.

The Fall Retold

A historical appendix, almost word for word with the end of Kings — the temple stripped, the deportation numbers counted, and a last note about Jehoiachin being given a seat at the king’s table.