Reading for August 29th

 Read Jeremiah 35.1-19. The Rechabites, by contrast, are faithful to their traditions. Little is certain about the identity of the Rechabites. In verses 8-10: They refrained from drinking wine and owning houses or land in the tradition of their ancestor, Jonadab son of Rechab. They exemplify true obedience, as shown in 2 Kings 10.15-27, where Jonadab assists King Jehu in purging Baal worship from the land. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 28th

 A good king and a bad community

In chs. 34-35: These two chapters contrasts the failure of the king and the people to obey God's word (ch. 34) with exemplary fidelity of a small group of people called Rechabites (ch. 35).The former group faces the dire consequences if infidelity, and the later group gains a future because of fidelity. Both stories are set during the Babylonian invasion, but the behavior they describe concerns consequences in the exilic present.

Read Jeremiah 34.1-22. Jerusalem is under attack. In verses 6-7: Only the fortress cities of Lachish and Azekah have not fallen to the Babylonians. The times are dire. In verses 8-10: Zedekiah proclaims the freedom of Judean slaves, according to the law and God's command (Deut 15.12-14). At first all the people followed, but then they changed their minds, so they will go into slavery. In verses 18-20: They will be cut up like a sacrificial animal in a covenant offering. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 27th

 Read Jeremiah 33.1-26. In 33.1-26: Restoration. The restored relationship between God and the people illustrated here. In verse 3: God invites Jeremiah to make requests. In verse 6: God assures the people of healing and prosperity. In verses 14-16: God promises to restore the kingship and the priesthood and to reunite the peoples of Israel and Judah. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 26th

 Read Jeremiah 32.26-42. In verses 26-42: God replies to Jeremiah that there is a future. In verse 38: The covenant will be renewed. In verse 42: The one who brought the disaster will bring a new future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 25th

 A changed future

Chs. 32-33: In these two narrative chapters, Jeremiah buys a field and offers prayers that signify a hopeful future for the exiles. Jeremiah purchases a field during an imprisonment that occurs while Babylon is invading Jerusalem. During an invasion, land is worthless. Helped by his companion Baruch (v. 12), Jeremiah redeems the land of his cousin as expected by law. The foolishness of that purchase stands as a promise that life will resume in the land. Jeremiah, captive like his exilic audience, is a model of obedient hopefulness in the face of tragedy.

Read 32.1-25. In verses 16-42: Jeremiah's prayer elaborates on the theme of hopefulness, asking God to see the invasion as it occurs. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 24th

 Read Jeremiah 31.31-40. In 31.31-40: New covenant. The poems about the restored family are followed by a brief but potent claim that there will be a new way of relating within the covenant family. God will make a new covenant with them. God and Israel will live in renewed fidelity. In verse 34: Everyone from the least to the greatest will know God. In verses 35-40: The cosmos itself and the fixed order or creation will be a sign of that fidelity, and Jerusalem will be rebuilt and never overthrown. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 23rd

 Read Jeremiah 31.15-30. In 31.15-30: Rachel's comfort. Rachel (Gen 27-35), perhaps symbolizing God's first wife (3.7-11), weeps for her lost children and receives the breathtaking news that they will return. In verses 18-20: Her son, actually her grandson, repents like the children (3.22-25), and God receives him back. In verses 21-22: God addresses wife Israel and asks how long it will be before she repents. The poem ends with a puzzling claim that God has done a new thing: a woman encompasses a man, perhaps an image of Rachel embracing her returning child. In verses 23-26: The woman maybe Jerusalem encompassing the people returning from exile. In verses 27-28: Perhaps wife Rachel encompasses a man sexually to give birth the a new generation. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 22nd

 Read Jeremiah 31.1-14. All Israel, both north and south, will be reunited. In verses 3-4: Survivors will return, covenant will be restored, and God will take back wife Israel, now called a virgin, no loner a harlot. She will be like Miram, leading the dance (Ex 15.20-21). In verse 9: Echoing the children's return (3.2-25), God takes them back and promises to be a father to them. In verses 10-14: Everyone in the society will participate in life that will be fertile and joyous on Zion. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 21st

 Read Jeremiah 30.18-24. In verses 18-22: God speaks to Jacob and refers also to Jerusalem, the city that will be rebuilt. Both northern and southern kingdoms are reunited in a poetic outburst concerning thanksgiving and new life. In verses 23-24: The national tragedy receives a summary interpretation. Divine wrath will one day end, and the audience will understand it in the future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 20th

 Read Jeremiah 30.12- 17. In a poetic movement similar to vv.5-11, this poem also moves unexpectedly from desperation to salvation, but the images shift from panic to woundedness and healing. The one addressed is daughter Zion, God's  unfaithful wife (2.1-3.25). God now pities her in her abandonment. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 19th

 Little book of consolation

Chs. 30-33: These chapters combine poetry (chs. 30-31) and prose 9chs. (32-33) to depict a harmonious, idealized future for Israel and Judah. The placement of these chapters of hope and healing toward the center of the book is puzzling. Stories and poems of accusation and conflict surround them as if to temper the hope of these echapters create. This structure may reflect the situation of the exilic audience, for whom escape from captivity remains a distant possibility. The chapters create a vision of what lies ahead, but they do not present a program for escape. Instead, they create unimagined possibilities that may help the community to endure for a new day.

Chs. 30-31 Restoration. The poems create a vision of a future nation in which northern and southern kingdoms are restored and reunited in Jerusalem.Some poems collected address male Jacob/ Israel. Jacob is the name used for the northern kingdom of Israel, and also the name of the ancestor of all the twelve tribes (Den 29-30). Other poems address female figures representing Judah, Zion, or Rachel one of Jacob's wives and mother of a northern and southern tribe. These names bring together both northern and southern kingdoms.

Read Jeremiah 30.1-11. In verse 2: God's command that Jeremiah write these words in a book makes it possible for Jeremiah to communicate with the exiles even though he is not with them. In verses 5-7: Images of panic and pain describe the distress for Jacob. In verses 8-11: Without explanation, hope replaces terror. God will remove the yoke of servitude from them, restore relationship with them, and raise up a king for them. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 18th

 Read Jeremiah 29.21-32. In verses 21-23: Two false prophets among the exiles, Ahab and Zedekiah, will die like Hananiah under the deuteronomistic curse (Duet 18.20). In verses 24-32; Shemaiah, one of the exiles, writes to the high priest in Jerusalem that he should silence Jeremiah. Jeremiah curses him as a false prophet like Hananiah. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 17th

 Read Jeremiah 29.1-20. In 29.1-32: Letters. From Jerusalem, Jeremiah writes letters to the exiles and responds to a letter about him. The letters to the exiles present Jeremiah as the authority about the exiles' survival. In verse 3: Supporters of Jeremiah serve as couriers. The exiles are not to resist Babylonian rule, but to live there in normal domestic relations and to seek the welfare of the city where they are held captive. In verse 10: After 70 years, probably a symbolizing a longtime, their relationship with God will be restored, and they will return to the land. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 16th

 Read Jeremiah 28.1-17. The conflict of prophetic messages narrows down to a conflict between two prophets of Judah, Hananiah and Jeremiah. In competing symbolic actions the two men wear yokes to enact and make concrete the prophetic messages. Jeremiah wears a wooden yoke to signify captivity by Babylon. In verse 10: Hananiah breaks Jeremiah's yoke as an attempt to say the opposite. In verses 12-14: Jeremiah returns later with an unbreakable iron yoke. In verse 17: Hananiah's death a year later indicates he was a false prophet preaching his own words, not divine revelation (Deut 18.20). Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 15th

 Read Jeremiah 27.12-22. The prophets of Judah also oppose the true word of God in a dispute about the Temple vessels. These sacred items had been deported to Babylon in 997 BCE, and the prophets expect them  to be restored to Judah quickly, implying that Babylonian rule will not last long. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 14th

 Yokes

In chs. 27-28: Jeremiah's conflict with other prophetic groups is the subject of these two chapters. Three stories increasingly narrow the conflict from an international disagreement to a personal dispute bteween two prophets.

Read Jeremiah 27.1-11. Jeremiah tells the nations that God has placed their lands under the control of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, my servant (v. 6). Their prophets have a contrary view. In verse 11: Those who refuse to serve Babylon will be put under the yoke. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 13th

 HOW THE NATION WILL SURVIVE

In Chs. 26-52: The first book (chs. 1-25) accused Judah pf infidelity, promised destruction and exile, and defended God from accusations of injustice. The second "book" (chs. 26-52) presents stories and poems that reveal how to survive the period after the nation's fall to Babylon. No longer is repentance to avert the disaster the primary concern. The book's audience lives with the community's failure to repent. They themselves must repent and endure. Jeremiah companion Baruch also appears in this part of the book. Baruch has been traditionally been named as the writer of the stories about Jeremiah, particularity in chs. 37-45. The exilic period was a time of great conflict about how to survive. This book insists that survival requires continued submission to Babylon, repentance, and obedience as set out in the book of Jeremiah. Chs. 26-29: Prophet discord: These chapters set forth disputes about which prophetic vision of the future will ensure the nation's survival.

Read Jeremiah 26.1-24. In 26.1-24: Jeremiah on trial. This chapter shows that Jeremiah faced great conflict but that he is the true prophet and, hence, is to be heeded. In verses 1-6: This chapter refers to Jeremiah's Temple sermon (7.1-8.3) and summarizes it. What is of interest here, however, is the community's response to the sermon. Some accept it; priests, prophets and King Jehoiakim reject it. Some of the leaders put Jeremiah on trial. In verse 12: Jeremiah responds to charges by claiming that it was God who sent me. The trial concludes with a declaration of Jeremiah's innocence. In verses 17-23: Some elders present examples of other prophets who spoke judgments against Jerusalem. In verses 18-23: King Hezekiah received the message of the prophet Micah, whereas the current king Jehoiakim, rejected the words of the prophet Uriah and had him killed. In verse 24: Mysteriously, Ahikam rescues Jeremiah from death. The story blames the king for rejecting prophetic word and invites the book's readers to join Jeremiah's supporters. It presents Jeremiah as a model of fidelity who, while in the hands of captors, remains faithful and rescued from peril. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 12th

 Read Jeremiah 25.30-38. In 25.30-38: The lion. God is a roaring lion who will devour the nations that have destroyed Judah. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 11th

 Read Jeremiah 25.15-29. In 25.15-29: Cup of wrath. A symbolic action makes the prophecy of vv. 8-14 concrete. God  commands Jeremiah to act as a wine steward. But instead of serving a joyous feast, Jeremiah serves a cup of wrath to the kings of major nations and city-states around Judah. In verse 26; The final king to drink is the king of Babylon, here called Saheshach. all must drink of God's punishment. In the symbolic sphere, Judah and its enemies have already exchanged places. All that remains is for historical events to unfold. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 10th

 Babylon's fall.

Ch. 25: This chapter closes off the first major division of the book by reaching back to ch. 1. At Last, Jeremiah acts as "prophet to the nations" (1.5, 10).

Read Jeremiah 25.1-14. In 25.1-14: Invaders will be punished. In verse 1: A narrator dates the chapter to the rules of the Judahite King Jehoiakim and Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. That date, 605 BCE, indicates that Jeremiah has prophesied the fall of Judah to Babylon well in advance of events. His prophecy of the fall of Babylon will, therefore, prove equally reliable. In verses 3-7: Jeremiah summarizes his carer and the people's refusal to listen to his words. This refusal provoked divine anger. In verses 8-14: God presents the consequences of not listening. In verse 9: The tribes of the north, now identified as Babylon, will be God's agent of destruction. God call the Babylonian king my servant. As divine agents, the Babylonians will destroy life on an international scale. In verse 11: Judah will serve Babylon for 70 years. This number may simply mean "a long time," for Exile lasted only 50 years. In verse 14: After that time God will punish Babylon. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 9th

 Read Jeremiah 24.1- 10. In 24.1-10: Figs. Jerusalem has been invaded, King Jehoiachin is in captivity, King Zedekiah has been appointed in his place. Jeremiah has a vision of two baskets of figs. One symbolizes survivors in Babylon; the other stands for those who have stayed in Judah or escaped to Egypt. The first basket is good; the second is rotten. The message for the survivors is that to survive they must cooperate with Babylon. Only then will they have a future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for August 8th

 Read Jeremiah 23-40. These prose verses continue to discredit the other prophets who have led the people astray. In verses 33-40: A play on words makes the same attack on the prophets. The word translated burden can also mean "oracle" or "prophetic poem." The prophets who ask for an oracle or message from god learn that they are God's burden. Comment of Questions..