Jeremiah 19-21

Jeremiah 19
1-15 The Broken Earthenware Jug

• God tells Jeremiah to buy an earthenware jug, take elders and senior priests to the valley of Hinnom and proclaim the disasters the LORD will bring on the people because of their profane worship, which includes offering their children as burnt offerings.
  
• He will void their plans, make them fall by their enemies' sword, give their dead bodies as food for birds and beasts, and make them eat the flesh of their sons, daughters and neighbors.
• Jeremiah is to break the jug and tell the people the LORD will break the people so that they can never be mended. In Topheth they will run out of places to bury the dead, and Jerusalem will become like Topheth.
• Jeremiah returns from Topheth and stands in the temple and restates the LORD's intention to destroy Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 20
1-6 Jeremiah Persecuted by Pashhur

• After Pashhur, a priest and son of the Chief Officer of the temple, Immer, hears Jeremiah's prophecy, he strikes Jeremiah and puts him in stocks in one of the temple gates.
• Jeremiah tells Pashhur that God has named him "Terror-all-around" and that the king of Babylon will carry away not only all the treasures of Judah but Passhur and his family and friends, and they will all die there.

7-18 Jeremiah Denounces His Persecutors

7 LORD, you have overpowered me, and I have become a laughingstock.
8-9 Even when I decide not to prophesy anymore, your word explodes from my bones, and I can't hold it in.
10-12 Though I hear them threaten me with revenge, the LORD will fight for me, and my persecutors will fail in shame and dishonor, for the LORD knows the hearts of men.
13 "Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers." One moment, Jeremiah is praising God for his goodness...
14-18 Cursed be the day I was born, the man who told my father of my birth. Why was I ever born? ...the next he is cursing his own birth. Echoes of Job's distress in Job 3:3

Jeremiah 21
1-10 Jerusalem Will Fall to Nebuchadnezzar

• Zedekiah sends Pashhur (son of Malchiah) and the priest Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah) to Jeremiah (in stocks, per chapter 20) for him to ask God for help against King Nebuchadnezzar, to perform a "wonderful" deed and rescue his people once again. It looks like Zedekiah is giving Jeremiah a chance to redeem himself by proclaiming good words upon Judah.
  
• Jeremiah tells them that God will not rescue them; in fact, he will weaken their weapons and fight against them, striking humans and animals with a great pestilence.
• Afterward, he will give Zedekiah, his servants and all those who survive the pestilence over into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar. Obviously, Jeremiah does not cave in.
  

11-14 Message to the House of David
11-12 Execute justice "in the morning" [soon!], or else my wrath will go forth like fire, with no one to quench it.
13-14 I will punish you who think you are invincible; I will punish you for your evil doings.