Bible in a Year · Day 240 of 365
Today’s reading: Jeremiah 4–7 (4 chapters)
Read the passage below, or open your own Bible and follow along. The text here is the World English Bible, a public-domain translation, printed in full so the day’s reading is all on one page.
About Jeremiah
Jeremiah prophesied through the last decades of Judah, from the reforms of Josiah to the burning of Jerusalem. He is often called the weeping prophet, and the book shows why: he is forbidden to marry, beaten, put in stocks, thrown into a cistern, and accused of treason for telling the truth. His temple sermon in chapter 7 and his letter to the exiles in chapter 29 are among the most quoted passages in Scripture. The book also carries the promise of a new covenant written on the heart, made in the middle of a story that is falling apart.
What to watch for. Watch the tension between Jeremiah's call and his cost, and read chapter 31 slowly. Notice that the new covenant is promised while the old one is being broken, not after everything is repaired.
Jeremiah 4
1“If you will return, Israel,” says Yahweh, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you shall not be removed; 2and you shall swear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.” 3For Yahweh says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns. 4Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. 5Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let us go into the fortified cities!’
6Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.” 7A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant. 8For this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us. 9“It shall happen at that day,” says Yahweh, “that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.” 10Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall have peace;’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart.”
11At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse; 12a full wind from these shall come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.” 13Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined. 14Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you? 15For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes evil from the hills of Ephraim:
16“Tell the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah. 17As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me,’” says Yahweh. 18“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.” 19My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. 20Destruction on destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment.
21How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? 22“For my people are foolish, they don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” 23I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. 25I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled.
26I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger. 27For Yahweh says, “The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. 28For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.” 29Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein. 30You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.
31For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”
Jeremiah 5
1“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her. 2Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives;’ surely they swear falsely.” 3O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return. 4Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God. 5I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
6Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased. 7“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses. 8They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife. 9Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says Yahweh; “and shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 10“Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches; for they are not Yahweh’s.
11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” says Yahweh. 12They have denied Yahweh, and said, “It is not he; neither shall evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine. 13The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them.” 14Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. 15Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know, neither understand what they say.
16Their quiver is an open tomb, they are all mighty men. 17They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword. 18“But even in those days,” says Yahweh, “I will not make a full end with you. 19It will happen, when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’ 20“Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,
21‘Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear: 22Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet they can’t pass over it.’ 23“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and gone. 24Neither do they say in their heart, ‘Let us now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’ 25“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.
26For among my people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. 27As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. 28They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t judge the right of the needy. 29“Shall I not punish for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 30“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.
31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
Jeremiah 6
1“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks out from the north, and a great destruction. 2I will cut off the comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion. 3Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed everyone in his place.” 4“Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. 5Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces.”
6For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression within her. 7As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds. 8Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.” 9Yahweh of Armies says, “They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.” 10To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, Yahweh’s word has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.
11Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days. 12Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh.” 13“For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. 14They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. 15Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down,” says Yahweh.
16Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ 17I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’ 18Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them. 19Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. 20To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.”
21Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend shall perish.” 22Yahweh says, “Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. 23They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.” 24We have heard its report; our hands become feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor. 25Don’t go out into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and terror, are on every side.
26Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us. 27“I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among my people; that you may know and try their way. 28They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly. 29The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away. 30Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”
Jeremiah 7
1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’” 3Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’ 5For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
6if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: 7then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. 8Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t profit. 9Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered;’ that you may do all these abominations?
11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says Yahweh. 12“But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer: 14therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring of Ephraim.
16“Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. 17Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?” 20Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.”
21Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat. 22For I didn’t speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: 23but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26yet they didn’t listen to me, nor did they incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers. 27“You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. 28You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ 29Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30“For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says Yahweh. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
31They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. 32Therefore behold, the days come”, says Yahweh, “that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury. 33The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and no one shall frighten them away. 34Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.”
Next · Day 241: Jeremiah 8–10 →
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public-domain translation. Day numbering follows the calendar year; you can start at Day 1 on any date.
