Jeremiah 4-5

Jeremiah 4
1-4 A Call to Repentance (cont'd)

1-2 If you return to me, remove your abominations, and swear "As the LORD lives!", he will bless the nations.
3-4 Break up your fallow ground, remove the foreskin of your hearts, or else my wrath will go forth like fire. Outward expressions of fidelity must come from the heart – in the Old Covenant as well as the New. See Romans 2: 27-29: "...For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical...."

5-18 Invasion and Desolation of Judah Threatened
5-8 Blow the trumpet and warn the people in Judah to gather in the fortified cities, to lament and wail, for a great destruction is coming from the north.
9 The king, the officials will lose courage, the priests will be appalled, the prophets astounded.
10 Jeremiah to God: "You have deceived the people by telling them it would be well with them." God had allowed the people to heed the false prophets and their cries of peace when there would be no peace.
11-12 A hot wind is coming up – one too strong for cleansing or winnowing.
13-18 He's coming like a whirlwind; Jerusalem, cleanse your hearts. Besiegers come from a distant land; your ways have brought this upon you.

19-31 Sorrow for a Doomed Nation
19-22 I writhe in pain for my people, as I hear the sound of the trumpet. They are foolish, stupid children, skilled in doing evil, not knowing how to do good.
23-26 I looked at the earth and saw heavens with no light, quaking mountains, a sky empty of birds, a fruitful land turned into a desert
27-28 For the LORD has said he would make the land desolate, and he will not relent.
29 At the sound of the approaching destruction, all the people desert their towns.
30-31 Desolate Jerusalem, you are foolish if you think your beauty will prevent destruction. You will cry out like a woman in labor.

Jeremiah 5
1-31 The Utter Corruption of God's People

1-3 You can look all over Jerusalem and not find one person who acts justly. Even as they are being punished they harden their hearts.
4-5 Surely that is true only of the poor, who don't know God's law. Yet when I go to the rich, they have also broken their bond with God.
6 They will be torn apart by the lion, the wolf, and the leopard because their apostasies are so great.
7-9 How can I pardon you? You have sworn oaths to idols, committed adulteries, lusted after your neighbor's wife. Shall I not bring rebribution?
10-13 Strip away Judah's branches, for they are not mine. They have been utterly faithless; their prophets are nothing but wind.
14 My words will be like fire and the people as wood.
15-17 I am going to bring upon you a nation that is ancient, whose language you do not understand, mighty warriors who will eat up your harvest, your children, your flocks and herds, your vines and fig trees, your fortified cities.
18-19 Yet I will not destroy you completely, so that when your people ask why they've been punished, you can answer, "As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours." This is a punishment of irony, then. Since you chose to serve foreign gods in your own land, now you will serve foreigners outside your land.
20-22 O foolish people with eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, how can you not fear the one who places sand as a boundary for the sea?
23-25 But you are foolish and rebellious, refusing to fear the one who gives the rain according to the season. Your iniquities have turned you away from the good you could receive.
26-29 Scoundrels have taken over, trapping people, growing fat, knowing no limits in their wickedness, not defending the rights of the defenseless and needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? God makes a defensive argument here. Doesn't it make sense that wicked people should suffer?
30-31 It's appalling and horrible. "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so." There is plenty of blame to go around. The wicked rule because the people allow it.

Note: As I proofread my notes, the summaries I had made grabbed my throat, because they apply so directly to our country. Verses 18-19: Are we not becoming more and more dependent on the wealth of foreign countries because as a whole we have made money our god? We serve that god inside our country and are becoming slaves to other countries. Verses 28-31. Do we not have people in power who deny that pre-born children are really human, who make no defense of their right to live? Do we not allow this false teaching to abound and therefore are just as culpable?