Reading for July 5th

 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 hesitancy 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 occurred. In verses 13-14: The people did not keep God's law nor listen to God's voice. Instead, they worshiped the Baals. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 4th

 Read Jeremiah 8.18-9.3. In 8.18-9.26: Weeping. God, the earth, and official 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 empathy with the people. If the audience is Israel during the 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, an unfaithful people. Comments or Questions.

Reading for July 3rd

 Read Jeremiah 8.4-17. In 8.4-17: Why the attack will come. God speaks to Jeremiah in continued perplexity 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 deluded 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 forJuly 2nd

 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 dishonored. The sermon seeks to bring about obedience and true worship. The people must listen to the voice of God though the prophet. If the book's audience lives in exile, then the sermon makes clear that only true worship will bring about renewed life in the land. Comments or Questions.. 

Reading for July 1st

 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 Hinnom. In verses 33-34: For these crimes the nation will be destroyed. Their corpses will be littered about, normal life in the land will cease, and the land will become a waste. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 30th

 Read 7.8-20. In 7.8-8.3: The sermon mpves in a downward spiral of offenses. In 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 Philistines. The Jerusalem Temple 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 June 29th

The Temple sermon.

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 spokesperson. The sermon's subject is the hypocrisy and arrogance of the people's worship. Rather than completely changing the subject from the poetry, the Temple sermon focuses attention on one 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 to Babylon 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. When 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 promise to David as unconditional 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. 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 notably from the invading foe but also from their own behavior Comments or Questions..