Jeremiah 13-14

Jeremiah 13
1-11 The Linen Loincloth

• God tells Jeremiah to buy a linen loincloth and to wear it without rinsing it first.
• Then he tells him to take it to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft.
• After a few days, he tells him to dig it up in its ruined state.
• It's a symbol of how God will ruin Judah, because they have betrayed him.
• As a loincloth clings to one's loins, so had God made Judah cling to him. But they would not listen.

12-14 Symbol of the Wine Jars

• Jeremiah is to tell the people that every wine jar should be filled with wine.
• When they say "Of course, we know that," he is to tell them that God will fill the people – including the leaders – with drunkenness, and will have no compassion on them as he dashes them one against another.

15-27 Exile Threatened

15-17 Jeremiah to the people: Do not be haughty, but give glory to the LORD before he brings darkness upon you. But if you will not listen, my soul will weep bitter tears.
18-19 Tell the king and queen mother to take a lowly seat as Judah is taken into exile.
20-21 See the enemy coming from the north as you lose your people, your allies become your master, as you suffer pangs like a woman in labor.
22-23 If you question why, it is because of your iniquity that you are being violated, so entrenched in sin that you can't overcome your evil any more than leopards can change their spots.
24-27 I will scatter you like chaff, expose your shame, for I have seen your abominations on the hills. Woe to you, Jerusalem!

Jeremiah 14
1-12 The Great Drought

1-6 Judah mourns as the nobles send servants for water and they return with empty cisterns; the ground, the farmers dismayed, the doe forsakes her newborn, wild asses stand on bare heights, for there is no herbage.
7-9 Do not forsake us, LORD, though we have sinned. Why should you act like a stranger to those who are called by your name?
10 Because the LORD's people loved to wander. Therefore he will remember their iniquity.

• The LORD to Jeremiah: Do not pray for these people, for I will not hear them or accept their worship, but will consume them by the sword, by famine and by pestilence. We've read this before, in Jeremiah 7:16: "As for you, do not pray for this people." Would you ever have thought that God will tell one of his servants not to pray? I suppose it wouldn't have been a sin for Jeremiah to pray, but God is certainly telling him it won't do any good; he's already made up his mind.
  

13-18 Denunciation of Lying Prophets

• Jeremiah to the LORD: Prophets are telling us there will be peace, not sword nor famine
• The LORD to Jeremiah: I did not send them; they lie. I will destroy them and all those who listen to them. Those who listen to false prophets will suffer the same consequences as the false prophets. They are without excuse.

17-18 Tell the people: My eyes will run with tears night and day, for when I go to the field, I see people killed by the sword, and when I go into the city, I see people sick with famine, for prophets and priests have spread their ignorance throughout the land.

19-22 The People Plead for Mercy

19 Have you completely rejected us, LORD?
20-21 We admit our sins; do not break your covenant with us.
22 We know that only you, not idols, can bring the rain; we set our hope on you. Now that we're starving to death, we will acknowledge that only you can bring us sustenance. When we thrived, we enjoyed false worship, but now that we're starving, we'll acknowledge the true source of prosperity. Note: I wonder if that would be the case now. Now I think we'd hear the accusation: Now where is your Creator God? If he were a reality, we wouldn't be starving.