Reading for July 28th

 Read Jeremiah 18.18-23. In 18.18-23: Jeremiah's fourth confession. In verse 18: Enemies of Jeremiah speak in a prose comment that illustrates the community's failure to repent. In verses 19-20: Jeremiah reminds God of how faithful Jeremiah has been to his prophetic mission. In verses 21-23: He asks God to punish the enemies who try to kill him. The prophet's enemies are the enemies of God because they refuse to hear the divine word that the prophet claims to speak. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 27th

 Read Jeremiah 18.13-17. In 18.13-17: God's response. God laments their idolatry and turns from them. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 26th

 Captivity

In chs. 18-20: These chapters mark a climax in the first part of the book and are more closely woven than previous sections. In them threats of captivity and disaster come to a symbolic fulfillment. After relentless efforts by God and Jeremiah to bring the nation to repentance, punishment comes upon them. 

Read Jeremiah 18.1- 12. In 18.1-12: The potter. Prose narrative describes Jeremiah's visit to the potter. The potter makes a vessel that he dislikes, so he destroys it and starts again. In verse 11: This action becomes symbolic of God's plan for Israel and occasions a final invitation to repent. In verse 12: The people adamantly refuse to repent. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 25th

Read Jeremiah 17.19-27. In 17.19-27: Sabbath sermon. In this prose passage, God directs Jeremiah to announce to the leadership the absolute necessity of keeping sabbath law. They are not to carry burdens or do work, and they must heed divine commands. If they fail, then Jerusalem will be destroyed by fire. This sermon explains again that the exile did not occur because God's cruelty or forgetfulness but resulted from the community's failure to be faithful. Comments or Questions.. 

Reading for July 24th

 Read Jeremiah 17.14-18. In 17.14-18: Jeremiah's third confession. Jeremiah is less accusatory of God here than in the previous confessions and asks for healing of his wound. In verse 15: He quotes his enemies, who doubt that he speaks the word of God because it has not come true. He asks God to take vengeance against them. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 23rd

 Read Jeremiah 17.1-13. In 17.1-27: True worship. Many voices combine in this chapter. In verses 1-4: In prose accusation, God accuses the people of Judah of idolatry and promises that they will be exiled. In verses 5-8: In language reminiscent of Ps 1, God announces the cursed fate of those who trust in themselves, and the blessed condition of those who trust in God. In verses 12-13: The voice of worship addressed to God reappears and speaks about the foolishness of abandoning the fountain of living water (2.13). Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 22nd

 Read Jeremiah 16.16-21. In verses 16-18: God's punishment here may be against the enemies who have invaded the land and polluted it with idols. In verses 19-20: A worshipping voice addresses God in the style of the children's speech (3.22-25), expressing loyalty and repentance. This speech provides a model of piety for the exiles to follow. Comments or Questions,,

Reading for July 21st

 Read Jeremiah 16.10-15: In verses 10-13: God quotes the people, who ask questions at the very heart of the book. Why has this happened? Exile has happened because of their sin and infidelity. In verses 14-15: Divine promises of a hopeful future addressed to the survivors of the nation's fall interrupt announcements of exile. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 20th

 Read Jeremiah 16.1-9. In 16.1-21: Jeremiah's celibacy. Several voices debate the meaning of exile. In verses 1-9: The first voice of God, who commands Jeremiah not to take a wife and not to beget children. Jeremiah's isolation from the community becomes even stronger. Yet his life becomes a symbolic act, a sign of what will happen to the people in exile. Normal life will be over. There will be no marriages, and that means there will be no children. Domestic life is over and the people have no future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 19th

 Read Jeremiah 15.10- 21. In Jeremiah 15.10-21: Jeremiah's second confession. In verse 10; Jeremiah laments his calling to announce the coming tragedy to the community. In verse 15: He addresses God directly to complain that he has been faithful, taking the divine words into himself like food. In verse 17: He stayed away from community life. In verse 18: Like people, Jeremiah's wound is incurable, for God is unreliable. In verses 19-21: God replies that Jeremiah must turn to God, just as Jeremiah has asked the people to do (4.2). Then God will be with him and rescue him. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 18th

 Read Jeremiah 15.1-9. In 15.1-16.21: No future, yet a future. In 15.1: Jeremiah cannot intercede with God for this sinful people because their infidelity places them beyond hope. Even the great mediators of the past, Moses and Samuel, could not get God to change the divine mind. These refusals by God to hear the prophet also indicate to the exilic audience that Jeremiah did not fail to prevent the nation's fall. Rather, they had sinned and God had no choice but to punish them. In verses 2-3: Poetry moves from the mythic description of the foe of the north to a more natural description of invasion and destruction. The culprit in this verse is King Manasseh, (2 Kings 21.10-15), who was famous for his idolatry. In verses 5-9: God laments over female Jerusalem, describes the disasters ahead, and accepts full responsibility for bringing calamity upon her. But the poem indicates that God has punished her only after becoming weary of relenting (v. 6). The poem defends God from charges of cruelty. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 17th

 Read Jeremiah 17.17-22. In verse 17: Jeremiah weeps at the woundedness of the people, portrayed as the virgin daughter, grievously wounded by a crushing blow. In verses 19-22: The people use language of worship to protest God's neglect of them and to ask why there is no healing and no rain. The people's voice probably represents the voice of the exiles, expressing repentance and hope in the same style as the children in 3.22-25. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 16th

 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 only the prophet sent by God. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 15th

 Read Jeremiah 14.1-10. In 14.1-22: 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 a 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 nations sinfulness. In verse 3: The earth and the animals are affected by the people's idolatry as they return to empty cisterns, instead of to the "fountain of living water" (2.13). In verses 8-9: The people speak in the language of worship, asking why God has forsaken them. In verse 10: God describes again their wandering, as they turn to other gods. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 14th

 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 verses 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 from the north 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 rape woman to describe the invasion of the city, directed and accomplished by God. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 13th

 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 symbolic 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 July 12th

 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 exile (vv. 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 its exposure to the elements. In verses 8-11: Jeremiah's words explain the action. Judah is supposed to cling to God but instead has been full of pride and has refused to listen; hence, the nation will become to ruin. Comments or Questions..

Reading for July 11th

 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. Describe as a wild lion, God's beloved heritage has provoked divine hate, so punishment will follow. In verses 14-17: A prose comment reuses language of plucking up from Jeremiah's call (1.10). God seems to address the exiles directly by promising that those who destroy God's heritage 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 July 10th

 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 plots to get rid of him. In verse 20 he appeals to God, the just judge, to take vengeance 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 Anathoth. 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 July 9th

 COVENANT DESTROYED

Chs. 11-20: Like the previous chapters, this section of the book seeks to explain the tragedy that has befallen Judah amd to defend God from the charges of cruelty. It claims that the people brought the catastrophe upon themselves. These chapters continue the poetic accusations of chs. 2-10, but in addition, Jeremiah himself moves into the foreground as a major character in the book. Stories show 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 the "confessions' or "laments" of Jeremiah. The confessions portray Jeremiah's sufferings as he tries to be faithful to his prophetic mission. The covenant sermon begins the next ten chapters with a curse whose fulfillment becomes inevitable by ch. 20. No belssings,which usually accompany curses--defeat of Judah--has already occurred and the audience is exile is asking why it happened and if it is reversibile. The sermon interprets their loss of the land as the result of their infidelity. Only obedience to God's voice through this prophetic book can set things right.

Read Jeremiah 11.1-17. In 11.1-17: The covenant curse. In this prose sermon, similar instyle to the Temple sermon (7.1-8.3), Jeremiah announces 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 simplicity: To possess 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, then 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 July 8th

 Read Jeremiah 10.17-25. In 10.17-25: Exile. These verses shift back tot he time before the Exile, and God announces that the attack, expected throughout chs. 4-10, is about to come (vv. 17-17, 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 gone. In verses 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..