Reading for September 8th

Read Jeremiah 14.11-16. In this prose comment we again hear God commanding Jeremiah not to intercede on behalf of the people because their case is beyond hope. Jeremiah stands in contrast to false prophets who preach lies to the people. This conflict suggests that the audience of the book is offered competing interpretations from its religious leaders. Jeremiah is the only prophet sent by God. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 7th

Read Jeremiah 14.1-10. In 14.1-27: Drought and wound. This chapter contains two poems, one concerning a drought (vv. 1-10) and one concerning the wounds of war ( vv. 17-22), with prose comment(vv. 11-16) between them. Though the actual drought may be behind the first poem, it stands here as an image of the destruction of the creation caused by the nation's sinfulness. In verse 3: The earth and the animals are affected by the people's idolatry as they return to empty cisterns, instead of the "fountain of the living water" (2.13). In verses 8-9: The peole speak in the language of worship, asking why God has forsaken them. In verse 10: God describes again the wandering, as they turn to other gods. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 6th

Read Jeremiah 13.15-27. Jeremiah warns the people against their pride and urges them to listen. In verse 17: If they do not, his response will be to weep at their captivity as God weeps (9.1). In veres 18-19: The queen mother, that is the mother of the king, will be brought low because the invasion and exile are already underway. In verse 20: The enemy fromt henceforth is coming. In verses 22-27: According to the Hebrew text, God addresses Jerusalem, personified again as female, with charges that her infidelity will result in her violation. God will be the one to lift her skirts, that is, to rape her. This shocking language uses the image of a raped woman to describe the invasion ofthe city, directed and accomplished by God. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 5th

Read Jeremiah 13.12-14. In a second symbolic event to occur in the future, God interprets actions to be performed by the people, not by Jeremiah. The filling of wine-jars signifies not feasting, as readers might expect, but drunkenness that is destructive of the people and the land. These verses seem to provide the punishment for the pride named in Jeremiah's symboloic action of hiding the loincloth. This wine-drinking episode points forward to 25.15-29, when all the nations drink from the cup of destruction. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 4th

Read Jeremiah 13.1-11. In 13.1-27: The nation's pride. In this chapter Jeremiah performs a symbolic act ( vv. 1-11), interprets a symbolic event (vv. 12-14), and in poetry again announces Exlie (15-27). The theme of the nation's false pride runs throughout the chapter. In verses 1-11: Jeremiah receives a divine command to purchase a loincloth and hide it in a cleft of the rock (v. 4). The results of his action symbolize his prophetic message. The loincloth is ruined by the exposure to the elements. In Verse 8-11: Jeremiah's words explain the action. Judah is suppose to cling to God but instead has been full of pride and has refused to listen, hence, the nation will come to ruin. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 3rd

Read Jeremiah 12.7-17. In 12.7-17: God's lament. Using the first person pronoun, I, God laments the infidelity of the beloved of my heart. Described as a wild lion, God's beloved hertiage has provoked divine hate, so punishment will follow. In verses 14-17: A prose comment reuses langauge of plucking up from Jeremiah's call (1.10). God seems to address the exiles directly by promising that those who destroy God's hertiage will be plucked from their land and God will pluck the people of Judah from where they are and return them home, if they listen. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 2nd

Read Jeremiah 11.18-12.6. In 11.18-12.6: Jeremiah's first confession. In verses 18-19: Jeremiah complains that he is under attack from unidentified enemies. He quotes their plotes to get rid of him. In verse 20: He appeals to God, the just judge, to take vengenge against them. In verses 21-23: In a prose comment, God promises to punish the enemies, who are identified as people from Jeremiah's own town of Anaoth. But Jeremiah then accuses the just judge of planting and nourishing wickedness. In 12.5-6: The judge replies that things will get worse; even Jeremiah's family will turn against him. Comments or Questions..

Reading for September 1st

COVENAT DESTROYED Chs. 11-20: Like the previous chapters, this section of the book seeks to explain the tragedy that has befallen Judah and to defend God from charges of cruelty. It claims that the people brought the catastrophe upon themselves. These chapters continue the poetic accusations of ch. 2-10, but in addition, Jeremiah himself moves into the foreground as a major character in the book. Stories how Jeremiah engaged in symbolic actions (chs. 13, 18, 19, 20). Symbolic actions are prophetic activities that express the prophetic message in dramatic behavior. In addition, this section also includes poems called "confessions" or "laments" of Jeremiah. The confession portray Jeremiah's sufferings as he tries to be faithful to his prophetic mission. The covenant sermon begins the next ten chaters with a curse whose fulfillment becomes inevitable by ch. 20. No blessing which usually accompany curses, appear here. The absence suggests that the curse-defeat of Judah-has already occurred and that the audience in Exile is asking why it happened and if it is reversible. The sermon interprets their loss of land as the result of their infedility. Only obedience to God's voice through this prophetic book can set things right. Read Jeremiah 11.1-17: The covenant cures. In this prose sermon, similar in style to the Temple sermon ((7.1-8.3), Jeremiah annouces a curse upon anyone who does not heed the words of the covenant (v.3). The covenant refers to the relationship of loyalty and love that God made with them at Mount Sinai (Ex 19). This sermon has one point that is presented with great simiplicity: To posses the land, the people must obey the covenant. In verse 4: They must listen to my voice. The covenant is a two-way relationship. If they obey, thn so shall you be my people, and I will be your God. In verse 5; That obedience is the condition of living in the land flowing with milk and honey. In verses 6-13: Otherwise disaster will fall upon them. In verses 14-17: Once again God tells Jeremiah not to intercede for the people because they are so sinful. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 31st

Read Jeremiah 10.17-25. In 10.17-25: Exile. These verses shift back to the time before the Exile, and God announces that the attack, expected throughout chs. 4-10, is about to come (vv. 17-18, 22). In verses 19-20: A second voice, probably that of Jerusalem personified as daughter Zion, laments her fate. She is abandoned and her children are gone. In verse 23-25: She admits her sins and asks for divine justice in punishment of both herself and the nations who devour Jacob, another name for Israel. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 30th

Read Jeremiah 10.1-16. In 10.1-16: Hymn of praise. These verses contain a hymn that expresses loyalty to the true God and makes fun of other gods as worthless idols. The hymn, which seems to follow 9.22, serves as a model of repentance and reconciliation for the exiles surviving the nation's collapse. The poem is similar in subject and worship style to the repentance of the children from the broken family (3.22-25). In verses 2-5: The people should neither becomes like the nations around them not adopt the idolatrous customs. In verse 6: Israel's God is the true king of the nations. In verses 8-11: By contrast, the gods of the nations are stupid, human creations. In verses 12-16: Only the God of Israel is the Creator whose wisdom made the world. Israel is God's special inheritance in this hymn, creation's harmony is reestablished. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 29th

Read Jeremiah 9.17-25. In verse 17: Mourning women: In ancient Israel, offical mourning women were called to funerals to lead the community in weeping. In verse 21: Here they are summoned to weep over the destructionof the nation, for death has come up into our windows. The funeral to which the people are invited is their own. In verses 23-26: A prose comment, which seems to continue from 9.12-16 rather than from the weeping poem, announces that God acts in justice for those who know me. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 28th

Read Jeremiah 9.4-16. In verses 4-8: Accusations against the people include their unfaithfulness to each other as they lie, slander, and deceive. In punishment God will refine them like silver. In verse 9: But God expresses hestiancy with a question also asked earlier (5.9, 29): How can punishment be avoided? In verses 10-11: The command to weep indicates that the destruction of the earth and of the city of Jerusalem cannot be turned away. The poem implies the end of the world for the inhabitants of Judah. Invasion by the foe from the north will end normal life. In verses 12-16: These prose verses interpret further the tragedy about to happen, but which for the audience of the book has already ocurred. In verses 13-14; The people did not keep God's law nor listen to God's voice. Instead, they worshipped the Baals. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 27th

Read Jeremiah 8.18-9.3. *.18-9.26: Weeping. God, the earth, and offical mourning women weep to signify the certainty of the nation's destruction. The poetry of weeping also suggests that God joins with the people and the earth in expressing vulnerability, pain, and grief over the invasion that will destroy life in the land. In 8.18-9.3: There is disagreement among scholars about the identity of the principal speaker in this poem but it is probably God. In verse 21: The God who suffered in the story of the broken family (2.1-3.25) is in pain and dismay again over the hurt of my poor people. The Hebrew text reads "daughter of my people," to suggest that God is still lamenting over the broken family relationship. In 9.1: The divine speaker then expresses a wish; O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! Divine tears, unlike divine anger, create a brief solidarity and empty with the people. If the audience is Israel during Exile, divine tears suggest that God has not rejected them forever but suffers with them. In verse 2: The speaker's mood changes quickly. God desires to escape from the midst of the sinners, unfaithful people. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 26th

Weeping and lamentation In 8.4-10.25: Poetry resumes this section that continues to announce the impending cosmic battle and also ephasizes themes of weeping and lamentation. The only reponse left in the face of the community's stubborness and infidelity is to weep at the tragedy that is certain to come. The poem gathered here fall into four groupings: 8.4-7 continues to explain why the cosmic battle must come; 8.18-9.26 begins the weeping as if at a funeral for the nation; 10.1-16 contains a communal prayer of loyalty; 10.17-25 announces the exile as the enemy from the north comes closer. As in earlier chapters in the book, many voices announce, comment upon, or respond to the approaching disaster. Voices of Lamentation and weeping that appeared in 3.21; 4.19; 6.26; and 7.29 burst out here with abundant tears that flow from God, Jeremiah, and the people. Read 8.4-17. In 8.4-17: Why the attack will come. God speaks to Jeremiah in continued peplexity about the people's failure to repent. In verses 6-7: They behave like wild animals. In verses 8-9: Their punishment will be captivity. The aftermath of military attack shows wives and fields captured by others. In verses 10-12: The refrain of accusation from 6.13-15 is repeated here to explain why the invasion must occur. Everyone is deluted and everyone sins. In verses 14-15: The people speak in confusion and blame God for failing them. Their voice may reflect the feelings of the book's audience in exile, even though their speech is here set before the recounting of the tragedy. In verses 16-17: God replies by calling attention to the sound of the approaching battle. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 25th

Read Jeremiah 8.1-3. In the horrifying conclusion to the sermon, the kings, who are not only the leaders but also symbolize the nation itself, will die and their corpses will be dishonoored. The sermon seeks to bring about obedience and true worship. The people must listen to the voice of God through the prophet. If the book's audience lives in Exile, then the sermon makes cler that only true worship will bring about renewed life in the land. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 24th

Read Jeremiah 7.21-34. In verse 29: A poetic verse urges the people to lament for God has rejected their worship. In verses 30--32: People offer their children in sacrifice on Topheth in the valley of Hinnon. In veres 33-34: For these crimes the nation willbe destroyed. Their corpses will be littered about, normal life in the land will cease, and the land shall become a waste. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 23rd

Read Jeremiah 7.8-20. In 7.8-8.3: The sermon moves downward spiral of offenses. In verses 7-9: The people commit crimes and worship Baal, a storm deity, not the God of Israel. In verses 12-15: For these offenses, Jerusalem will become like Shiloh, a shrine in the northern kingdom that was destroyed by the Philistenes. The Jerusalem Tempple will meet the same fate if the people of Judah do not repent. In verses 16--17: Yet the sins of Judah are so great that God prohibits Jeremiah from interceding on behalf of the people. In verses 18-19: Entire families worship the astral deity called the queen of heaven. comments or Questions..

Reading for August 22nd

The Temple sermon In Chs. 7-8: This long prose sermon presented by Jeremiah at the Temple in Jerusalem appears to interrupt the poetry of Chs. 1-10. The poetry contains multiple images and voices that intrude upon each other and, in chs. 4-6 focus on the cosmic battle. The prose sermon, by contrast, contains only the voice of Jeremiah as the divine spokesman. the sermon's subject is the hipocrisy and arrogance of the people's worship. Rather the completely changing the subject from the poetry, the Temple sermon focuses attention on one or more aspect of the people's sinfulness. The people themselves, not God, should be blamed for the destruction of the nation. Judah and its capital city, Jerusalem, fell the Babylonians in the sixth century BCE, because their worship was false. The sermon must have been immensely shocking for its original audience. Since the time of David, the king and the Temple had been closely bound together in the people's thinking. Whe David came to the throne, God promised that David's son would build the Temple and that David and his throne would be established forever (1 Sam 7.1-7). A century earlier than Jeremiah, the prophet Isaiah had interpreted the promises to David as un conditional assurance of Jerusalem's safety (Isa 36-37). By the time of Jeremiah, the people of Judah seemed to think they were safe no matter what they did. Read Jeremiah 7.1-7. In 7.1-7: standing at the gates of the Temple, Jeremiah tells the people that they must change their ways to dwell in this place (7.3, 7, 10, 11). The "place" probably refers to the Temple, the land, and the city, To live there, they must stop their false reliance on the place itself. Instead, they must act justly toward one another. They claim God's protection in the Temple even though, by oppressing weak members of their society, they act as if they are not God's people. The threat to the nation stems not only from the invading foe but also from their own behavior. Commnets or Questions..

Reading for August 21st

Read Jeremiah 6.22-30. The attacking army continues to advance against you, O daughter Zion (v. 23). In verse 26: As the symbol of the city there is nothing for her to do but lament her fate. In verse 27: God speaks to Jeremiah to tell him his role is like one who tests the authencity of silver. In verse 30: Judah is rejected silver. Coments or Questions..

Reading for August 20th

Read Jeremiah 6.13-21. In verses 13-15: A refrain that will reappear in 8.10-13 charges the entire community with guilt-from the people to the leaders. Everyone is greedy and leaders lie; therefore, God is justified in punishning them. In verses 16-21: God assembles the nations and the earth itself as witnesses against them in a covenant lawsuit. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 19th

Read Jeremiah 5.30-6.12. In 6.1-30: Daughter Zion is attacked. Ths chapter gathers images of the cosmic battle into a collection of poems from a chorus of speakers. The mythic nature of the battle increases when the text identiifies daugther Zion as the object of attack. A ferocius military nation wages war against Jerusalem, portrayed as a weak, wanton woman, defenseless inthe face of her foe. In verse 1: A voice urges the children of Benjamin, one of the tribes of Judah, to flee the city for evil looms out of the north. In verses 4-7: The poem quotes the enemies' shouts as they prepare for attack. They believe they are acting under divine orders against a wicked city. In verses 10-12: Jeremiah laments the people's stubbornness. They are not even capable of hearing the prophet's warning. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 18th

Read Jeremiah 5.20-29. God's reluctance to punish is overcome because neither Jacob, the northern kingdom that fell to Assyria in 721 BCE, nor Judah, the southern kingdom that falls to Babylon in 587, sees, hears, or fears the Creator. Unlike the sea and the rains that stay in place and come at the proper times., the people know no boundaries in their wickedness. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 17th

Read Jeremiah 5.7-19. In verses 7-11: A question that will be repeated (5.29) addresses an unnamed female. She is probably daughter Zion and God's unfaithful wife (2.1-3.5). God asks if there is a way to pardon her, but she and her children have been adulterous. There is no way to avoid punishment. In verses 12-18: Further accusations of infedelity introduce another announcement of the approaching invader, a mighty nation, superhuman in its capabilities. However, a prose comment promises not to completely destroy the nation. If the book's audience is the people in exile, v. 18 speaks to them directly. They are the remnant who remain after the invasion. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 16th

Read Jeremiah 5.1-6. In 5.1-31: God's reluctance to send the attackers. These loosely connected poems show that God does not wish to destroy the nation. Instead, the people are at fault because they will not act justly or repent. God is niether arbitry nor whimsical in orchestrating the attack on the nation. In verses 1-6: God will not destroy the nation if Jeremiah can find one righteous person. Though he runs up and down the streets of Jerusalem to the rich and the poor, Jeremiah's search is unsuccessful. God promises invasion by wild animals, which symbolize the invading army. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 15th

Read Jeremiah 4.22-31. In 4.23-28: Creation destroyed. The speaker describes a terrying vision of destruction that reverses the world's creation in the first chapter of Genesis. This picture of the earth as a devasted landscape, waste and void, implies that the cosmic battle somehow overturns the world. The impact of the historical invasion of Judah by Babylon meant the end of their national world, the collapse of daily life in their land. The poem describes the symbolic effects of that invasion. Judah's world has come to an end. In verses 21-31: The battle draws near as suggested by the noise of the attack and the flight of the inhabitants. The poem portrays the city of Jerusalem as a woman called daughter Zion. She is probably God's first wife in 2.1-3.25. Portraying the city as a woman indicates how impoosible defense against the advancing army is for her and creates pity in the reader. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 14th

Read Jeremiah 4.5-22. In 4.5-31: The sound of the trumpet and the sight of the standard or flag of the army evoke the battle. In verses 6-7: References to the mythic foe add to the uneathly terror coming upon the nation. The enemy is a lion, magified into a destroyer of nations. Since God is the one bringing the foe, supernatural foces are arrayed against the nations. In verses 19-22: Although God brings the enemy, God also witnesses the battle with uncontrollable angusih. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 13th

THE COSMIC BATTLE Chs. 4-10: Chapter 4 turns away from the story of the broken family to give prominence to announcements of imminent invasion by the "foe from the north." The material in this section is largely poetic, but there are some prose passages as well (7.1-8.3). Although individual passages come from many differenet times, they are collected here around the theme of cosmic destruction at the hands of the mythic "foe from the north." Read Jeremiah 4.1-4. The approaching enemy. Chs. 4-6: No narrative unifies these poems, but the approaching foe looms over the chapters and gives them menacing drama. The voice of God, Jeremiah, a narrator, the people, daughter Zion, and the foe from the north-all speak and argue about God's role in the coming invasion. The battle poems use great art in portraying war. Scences of approaching armies appeal to the senses and give the superhuman enemy from the north shape in the imagination. With a few details of sight and sound, the poems place readers in the thick of the battle. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 12th

Read Jeremiah 3.19-24. In 3.19-24: Though still nostalgic for his wife (2.19-20). the husband/father again invites the children to "return" and promises to heal them. In verses 22-24: The children then begin to speak, addressing the father directly and repenting of their infedelity and idolatry. The family is partially restored. The account of the broken family symbolically retells the entire course of Judah's history up to the exile. It is likely that the children symbolize the exiles who were invited to return and promised a renewed future in allegiance to their father. The story of the broken family explains the Exile symbollically. The historical destruction of Judah and Jerusalem was not God's fault but was punishment for idolatry and betrayal. That betrayal by all the people appears the more intimate and wrong because it is like betrayal by a spouse. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 11th

Read Jeremiah 3.6-18. In verses 6-10: Jeremiah replaces the husband as speaker and reports thatthe husband had previously had another wife, Israel, who betrayed him and whom he had also divorced. In this story of the family, both the northern and the southern kingdoms have betrayed God and been cast off. Since the the northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria in 721 BCE, this story explains that historical tragedy in the symbolic terms of betrayal in marraige. In verses 11-18: the divine husband sends Jeremiah to speak to the first wife and invite her to return. The text reports no response from her. Then the invitation to return is addressed to the children (v. 14). Their father promises them restoration and reunification of the whole people in Jerusalem (vv. 15-18). Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 10th

Read Jeremiah 2.4-3.5. In 2.4-3.5: In these poems, the divine speaker alternates in addressing male Israel (2.4-16; 2.26-32) and female Judah portrayed as God's wife (2.17--25; 2.33-3.5). The effect of this switch from male to female is to accuse both figures of infedelity and of going after other gods or lovers. Male Israel changes its gods (2.11), forsakes God, the fountain of living water (2.13), digs its own sources of water (2.13) and worships idols (2.27-28). wife Judah also betrays God, but in amore intimate ways. Though she is God's wife, she played the whore ( 2.20), went after other lovers (2.23-25, 33: 3.1), and would not return to her husband (3.1). The Hebrew word for return also means "to repent." The divine husband, therefore, divorces her (3.1-5). The relationship between God and his wife symbolizing all the people of Isreal and Judah, is over. The fammily is broken and there appears to be no future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 9th

The broken family Chs. 2-3: A story of a broken family underlies and unifies the poetry and prose of this section. The account of this family functions as a summary of the whole boook in symbolic form. God appears as husband and father, betrayed, brokenhearted and in search of reconcilation with his unfaithful wife and children. Read Jeremiah 2.1-3. God speaks and addresses his wife, remembering how good it was during their honeymoon. Then God addresses male Israel in similar words. Israel was holy to the Lord. Both female and male were set apart and protected. Comments or Questions..