Bible in a Year · Day 243 of 365
Today’s reading: Jeremiah 15–17 (3 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 15
1Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not be toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out! 2It shall happen, when they tell you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’ 3“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. 4I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. 5For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? or who will bemoan you? or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare?
6You have rejected me,” says Yahweh. “You have gone backward: therefore I have stretched out my hand against you, and destroyed you; I am weary with repenting. 7I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways. 8Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. 9She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded: and their residue will I deliver to the sword before their enemies,” says Yahweh. 10Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet everyone of them curses me.
11Yahweh said, “Most certainly I will strengthen you for good. Most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. 12Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? 13Your substance and your treasures will I give for a plunder without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders. 14I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn on you.” 15Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors. You are patient, so don’t take me away. Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.
16Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, Yahweh, God of Armies. 17I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand; for you have filled me with indignation. 18Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? 19Therefore Yahweh says, “If you return, then I will bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take out the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth. They shall return to you, but you shall not return to them. 20I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you,” says Yahweh.
21“I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”
Jeremiah 16
1Yahweh’s word came also to me, saying, 2“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.” 3For Yahweh says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: 4“They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.” 5For Yahweh says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says Yahweh, “even loving kindness and tender mercies.
6Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; 7neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. 8“You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” 9For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. 10It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’
11Then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says Yahweh, ‘and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; 12and you have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me. 13Therefore will I cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night; for I will show you no favor.’ 14“Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that it shall no more be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ 15but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.” 19Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit. 20Shall a man make to himself gods, which yet are no gods?”
21“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is Yahweh.”
Jeremiah 17
1“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars. 2Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills. 3My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders. 4You, even of yourself, shall discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which shall burn forever.” 5Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.
6For he shall be like a bush in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. 7“Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh. 8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. 9The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? 10“I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
11As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the middle of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool. 12A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. 13Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters. 14Heal me, O Yahweh, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for you are my praise. 15Behold, they tell me, “Where is Yahweh’s word? Let it be fulfilled now.”
16As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you; neither have I desired the woeful day; you know. That which came out of my lips was before your face. 17Don’t be a terror to me: you are my refuge in the day of evil. 18Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed; bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction. 19Thus said Yahweh to me: “Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; 20and tell them, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:
21Yahweh says, “Be careful, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; 22neither carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do any work: but make the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. 23But they didn’t listen, neither turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction. 24It shall happen, if you diligently listen to me,” says Yahweh, “to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work therein; 25then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on David’s throne, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever.
26They shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the hill country, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meal offerings, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, to Yahweh’s house. 27But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”’”
Next · Day 244: Jeremiah 18–21 →
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.
