Jeremiah 37: Jeremiah is arrested for treason

 Jeremiah 37: Jeremiah is arrested for treason

The Lord speaks through Jeremiah, but, did it make Jeremiah more rich or powerful? In this chapter, Jeremiah is arrested for treason. King Zedekiah ( a puppet king set on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon ) is the last king before the Babylonian captivity and Jeremiah has been preaching for two decades to repent and even to surrender to the Babylonian army while false prophets (more nationalistic) were preaching that the Lord would protect his temple, Jerusalem, his people, etc. In this chapter, it was very clear that Jeremiah was right because the Babylonian army is surrounding  Jerusalem. However:

4-5 ... Pharaoh’s army was marching up from Egypt. The Chaldeans fighting against Jerusalem heard that the Egyptians were coming and pulled back.

Although Zedekiah was set by Nebuchadnezzar, he must made some agreement with pharaoh, so pharaoh's army is now marching to Jerusalem. King Zedekiah asks to Jeremiah to pray:

3 However, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Pray for us—pray hard!—to the Master, our God.”

Zedekiah wants to stay in throne, free from the Babylonians; and he wants the blessing of the Lord. Jeremiah replies:

6-10 Then Jeremiah the prophet received this Message from God: “I, the God of Israel, want you to give this Message to the king of Judah, who has just sent you to me to find out what he should do. Tell him, ‘Get this: Pharaoh’s army, which is on its way to help you, isn’t going to stick it out. No sooner will they get here than they’ll leave and go home to Egypt. And then the Babylonians will come back and resume their attack, capture this city and burn it to the ground. I, God, am telling you: Don’t kid yourselves, reassuring one another, “The Babylonians will leave in a few days.” I tell you, they aren’t leaving. Why, even if you defeated the entire attacking Chaldean army and all that was left were a few wounded soldiers in their tents, the wounded would still do the job and burn this city to the ground.’”

During this absence of the Babylonian army surrounding Jerusalem, Jeremiah decided to leave the city:

11-13 When the Chaldean army pulled back from Jerusalem, Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go over to the territory of Benjamin to take care of some personal business. When he got to the Benjamin Gate, the officer on guard there, Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, grabbed Jeremiah the prophet, accusing him, “You’re deserting to the Chaldeans!”

In fact, Jeremiah's preaching seems in favor of the Babylonians. So, he was arrested when leaving Jerusalem.

14-16 “That’s a lie,” protested Jeremiah. “I wouldn’t think of deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah wouldn’t listen to him. He arrested him and took him to the police. The police were furious with Jeremiah. They beat him up and threw him into jail in the house of Jonathan the secretary of state. (They were using the house for a prison cell.) So Jeremiah entered an underground cell in a cistern turned into a dungeon. He stayed there a long time.

When I was very little and mommy was not converted yet, she told me that good things happens to good people and bad things happens to bad people. The Bible is full of stories that goes against it; in fact, Jesus told in Matthew 5:

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.