Jeremiah 8: lack of repentance and punishiment

 In Jeremiah 8 we read:

 1-2 “And when the time comes”—God’s Decree!—“I’ll see to it that they dig up the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the princes and priests and prophets, and yes, even the bones of the common people. They’ll dig them up and spread them out like a congregation at worship before sun, moon, and stars, all those sky gods they’ve been so infatuated with all these years, following their ‘lucky stars’ in doglike devotion. The bones will be left scattered and exposed, to reenter the soil as fertilizer, like manure.

I don´t know what for would the Babylonians profane the graves. The destruction will be so great that even the dead will be disturbed by it.

4-7 “Tell them this, God’s Message:

“‘Do people fall down and not get up?
    Or take the wrong road and then just keep going?
So why does this people go backward,
    and just keep on going—backward!
They stubbornly hold on to their illusions,
    refuse to change direction.
I listened carefully
    but heard not so much as a whisper.
No one expressed one word of regret.
    Not a single “I’m sorry” did I hear.
They just kept at it, blindly and stupidly
    banging their heads against a brick wall.
...

It is expected that the one fall in temptation , repent and return to the Lord; but hte people is living in sin with no regard to the will of the Lord.

8-9 “‘How can you say, “We know the score.
    We’re the proud owners of God’s revelation”?
Look where it’s gotten you—stuck in illusion.
    Your religion experts have taken you for a ride!
Your know-it-alls will be unmasked,
    caught and shown up for what they are.
Look at them! They know everything but God’s Word.
    Do you call that “knowing”?

The religion experts are proud owners of God's revelation, but they don't really know God's word.
The Lord will severely punish his people:

18-22 I drown in grief.
    I’m heartsick.
Oh, listen! Please listen! It’s the cry of my dear people
    reverberating through the country.
Is God no longer in Zion?
    Has the King gone away?
Can you tell me why they flaunt their plaything-gods,
    their silly, imported no-gods before me?
The crops are in, the summer is over,
    but for us nothing’s changed.
    We’re still waiting to be rescued.
    
If the Lord severely punished his people at that time, it is supposed that the Lord punish his people today.

Jeremiah 7: the Lord wants a holy people and will destroy the Temple.

 Jeremiah 7 was written before the destruction of the temple. The Lord says that the temple will be destroyed as Shiloh that was in Ephraim was destroyed:

12 “‘Take a trip down to the place that was once in Shiloh, where I met my people in the early days. Take a look at those ruins, what I did to it because of the evil ways of my people Israel.

13-15 “‘So now, because of the way you have lived and failed to listen, even though time and again I took you aside and talked seriously with you, and because you refused to change when I called you to repent, I’m going to do to this Temple, set aside for my worship, this place you think is going to keep you safe no matter what, this place I gave as a gift to your ancestors and you, the same as I did to Shiloh. And as for you, I’m going to get rid of you, the same as I got rid of those old relatives of yours around Shiloh, your fellow Israelites in that former kingdom to the north.’

Who would believe in this message? The people had some mystic relationship with the temple as the Lord says:

3-7 “‘Clean up your act—the way you live, the things you do—so I can make my home with you in this place. Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here—“This is God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple!” Total nonsense! Only if you clean up your act (the way you live, the things you do), only if you do a total spring cleaning on the way you live and treat your neighbors, only if you quit exploiting the street people and orphans and widows, no longer taking advantage of innocent people on this very site and no longer destroying your souls by using this Temple as a front for other gods—only then will I move into your neighborhood. Only then will this country I gave your ancestors be my permanent home, my Temple.

There were false prophets saying that the Temple was a permanent home to the Lord, therefore, the Temple and the people were protected. It is similar to a church full of sins saying that the Lord will keep it alive because it is the house of the Lord.

Imagine how angry were the leaders of Judah when heard Jeremiah saying that the Lord will destroy his Temple and many will die; but despite that, Jeremiah was praying to the Lord for the Jews:

16-18 “And you, Jeremiah, don’t waste your time praying for this people. Don’t offer to make petitions or intercessions. Don’t bother me with them. I’m not listening. Can’t you see what they’re doing in all the villages of Judah and in the Jerusalem streets? Why, they’ve got the children gathering wood while the fathers build fires and the mothers make bread to be offered to ‘the Queen of Heaven’! And as if that weren’t bad enough, they go around pouring out libations to any other gods they come across, just to hurt me.

The Lord rejects religious sacrifices when mixed with sin:

1-23 “The Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God: ‘Go ahead! Put your burnt offerings with all your other sacrificial offerings and make a good meal for yourselves. I sure don’t want them! When I delivered your ancestors out of Egypt, I never said anything to them about wanting burnt offerings and sacrifices as such. But I did say this, commanded this: “Obey me. Do what I say and I will be your God and you will be my people. Live the way I tell you. Do what I command so that your lives will go well.”

This message tells me that the Lord rejects my religious offerings and even my time spent reading the Bible if I don't love the Lord as He is and if it doesn't translate into loving his sons and daughters.

Jeremiah 6 - a message not listened: Run for your lives, children of Benjamin!"

 In Jeremiah 6 we read:

1-5 “Run for your lives, children of Benjamin!
    Get out of Jerusalem, and now!
Give a blast on the ram’s horn in Blastville.
    Send up smoke signals from Smoketown.
Doom pours out of the north—
    massive terror!

The prophet Jeremiah preached for some decades. Although he was aware that Jerusalem would be destroyed, the people didn't listen to him. In a way, the Lord knew that everything would occur. What for did Jeremiah preach? I am a gentile, in 2023 Brazil, listening to Jeremiah before the Jerusalem destruction. So, although everything happened despite Jeremiah's message, his message resonates saying that the YHWH is the Lord who has everything under his control. It is very likely that the Jews would forsake the Lord if they didn't have theses prophecies.

6-8 God-of-the-Angel-Armies gave the orders:

“Chop down her trees.
    Build a siege ramp against Jerusalem,
A city full of brutality,
    bursting with violence.
Just as a well holds a good supply of water,
    she supplies wickedness nonstop.
The streets echo the cries: ‘Violence! Rape!’
    Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place.
You’re in deep trouble, Jerusalem.
    You’ve pushed me to the limit.
You’re on the brink of being wiped out,
    being turned into a ghost town.”

Who did build a siege ramp against Jerusalem? The Babylonian arm, but Jeremiah foresaw it as an order of the Lord.
Although it was very real that they should "run for their lives", nonetheles, nobody was listening.

10-11 “I’ve got something to say. Is anybody listening?
    I’ve a warning to post. Will anyone notice?
It’s hopeless! Their ears are stuffed with wax—
    deaf as a post, blind as a bat.
It’s hopeless! They’ve tuned out God.
    They don’t want to hear from me.
But I’m bursting with the wrath of God.
    I can’t hold it in much longer.

Jeremiah explains the reasons for the destruction to come:

13-15 “Everyone’s after the dishonest dollar,
    little people and big people alike.
Prophets and priests and everyone in between
    twist words and doctor truth.
My people are broken—shattered!—
    and they put on Band-Aids,
Saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’
    But things are not ‘just fine’!
Do you suppose they are embarrassed
    over this outrage?
No, they have no shame.
    They don’t even know how to blush.
There’s no hope for them. They’ve hit bottom
    and there’s no getting up.
As far as I’m concerned,
    they’re finished.”
        God has spoken.
16-20 ....
I’m visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result
    of the games they’ve been playing with me.
They’ve ignored everything I’ve said,
    had nothing but contempt for my teaching.
What would I want with incense brought in from Sheba,
    rare spices from exotic places?
Your burnt sacrifices in worship give me no pleasure.
    Your religious rituals mean nothing to me.”

Jeremiah explains a bit more the destruction to come:

22-23 And listen to this verdict from God:

“Look out! An invasion from the north,
    a mighty power on the move from a faraway place:
Armed to the teeth,
    vicious and pitiless,
Booming like sea storm and thunder—tramp, tramp, tramp—
    riding hard on war horses,
In battle formation
    against you, dear Daughter Zion!”

Jeremiah 5: sin from rich and poor, from who reads the Torah and who doesn't read the Torah.

 in Jeremiah 5, we read:

1 “Roam about through the streets of Jerusalem,
And look and take notice.
And seek in her public squares,
If you can find a person,
If there is one who does justice, who seeks honesty,
Then I will forgive her.

The prophet searches for one who does justice but he can´t find any.

4 Then I said, “They are only the poor,
They are foolish;
For they do not know the way of the Lord
Or the judgment of their God.

5 I will go to the great
And speak to them,
For they know the way of the Lord
And the judgment of their God.”
But together they too have broken the yoke
And burst the restraints.

Although the rich people have access to the Torah, they were sinners; some rich people explore the poor:

26 For wicked people are found among My people,
They watch like fowlers [f]lying in wait;
They set a trap,
They catch people.
27 Like a cage full of birds,
So their houses are full of deceit;
Therefore they have become great and rich.
28 They are fat, they are sleek,
They also [g]excel in deeds of wickedness;
They do not plead the cause,
The cause of the [h]orphan, so that they may be successful;
And they do not [i]defend the rights of the poor.

The Lord will not forgive Jerusalem:

7 “Why should I forgive you?
Your sons have forsaken Me
And sworn by those who are not gods.
When I had fed them to the full,
They committed adultery
And stayed at the prostitute’s house.
8 They were well-fed lusty horses,
Each one neighing at his neighbor’s wife.
9 Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the Lord,
“And shall I not avenge Myself
On a nation such as this?
...
14 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of armies says:
“Because you have spoken this word,
Behold, I am making My words fire in your mouth,
And this people wood, and it will consume them.
15 Behold, I am bringing a nation against you from far away, you house of Israel,” declares the Lord.
“It is an enduring nation,
It is an ancient nation,
A nation whose language you do not know,
Nor can you understand what they say.
16 Their quiver is like an open grave,
All of them are warriors.
17 They will devour your harvest and your food;
They will devour your sons and your daughters;
They will devour your flocks and your herds;
They will devour your vines and your fig trees;
They will demolish your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.

However, the Lord will not destroy Jerusalem completely:

18 “Yet even in those days,” declares the Lord, “I will not make a complete destruction of you. 19 And it shall come about when [d]they say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have abandoned Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

There are false prophets spreading a false message:

12 They have lied about the Lord
And said, “[c]Not He;
Misfortune will not come upon us,
Nor will we see sword or famine.
13 The prophets are as wind,
And the word is not in them.
So it will be done to them!”

Although rich and poor people have abandoned the Lord, the Lord still wants to make them his holy people; even thorough punishment.

Jeremiah 4: false assurance that Judah is safe

 
In Jeremiah 4, the Lord says:

 “If you want to come back, O Israel,
    you must really come back to me.
You must get rid of your stinking sin paraphernalia
    and not wander away from me anymore.

...

Here’s another Message from God
    to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:
“Plow your unplowed fields,
    but then don’t plant weeds in the soil!
Yes, circumcise your lives for God’s sake.
    Plow your unplowed hearts,
    all you people of Judah and Jerusalem.
Prevent fire—the fire of my anger—
    for once it starts it can’t be put out.
Your wicked ways
    are fuel for the fire.

Jeremiah calls Israel and Judah to come back to the Lord otherwise the fire of the Lord's anger will burn their wicked ways. The invasion from the north is coming:

6 Raise a flag toward Zion!
Take refuge, do not stand still,
For I am bringing evil from the north,
And great destruction.

Jeremiah questions the Lord:

10 Then I said, “Alas, Master God!
    You’ve fed lies to this people, this Jerusalem.
You assured them, ‘All is well, don’t worry,’
    at the very moment when the sword was at their throats.”

The Lord is warning Jerusalem about the coming destruction through the prophet Jeremiah, however Jerusalem is deceived, assured that everything is well. Interestingly the prophet blames the Lord for it. Yet:

11 At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness, in the direction of the daughter of My people—not to winnow and not to cleanse, 12 a wind too [d]strong for [e]this—will come [f]at My command; now I will also pronounce judgments against them.”

I understood that this scorching wind refers to the evil from the north in verse 6, i.e., Babylon.
The Lord is showing the coming destruction to Judah but still, there is hope:

14 Wash your heart from evil, Jerusalem,
So that you may be saved.
How long will your wicked thoughts
Lodge within you?

...

18 Your ways and your deeds
Have [h]brought these things upon you.
This is your evil. How bitter!
How it has touched your heart!”

The prophet laments the coming destruction given that Judah has no understanding:

21 How long must I see the flag
And hear the sound of the trumpet?
22 “For My people are foolish,
They do not know Me;
They are foolish children
And have no understanding.
They are skillful at doing evil,
But they do not know how to do good.”

23 I looked at the earth, and behold, it was a [m]formless and desolate emptiness;
And to the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,
And all the hills jolted back and forth.
25 I looked, and behold, there was no human,
And all the birds of the sky had fled.
26 I looked, and behold, [n]the fruitful land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were pulled down
Before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

Judah sought alliances with Egypt and Assyria (her lovers) in vain:

30 And you, desolate one, what will you do?
Although you dress in scarlet,
Although you adorn yourself with jewelry of gold,
Although you enlarge your eyes with makeup,
In vain you make yourself beautiful.
Your [p]lovers despise you;
They seek your life.  

31 For I heard a voice cry as of a woman in labor,
The anguish as of one giving birth to her first child.
The voice of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,
Stretching out her [q]hands, saying,
“Ah, woe to me, for [r]I faint before murderers.”

Jeremiah 3: I will heal your faithlessness.

 In Jeremiah 3 we read:

1 God [a]says, “If a husband divorces his wife
And she leaves him
And becomes another man’s wife,
Will he return to her again?
Would that land not be completely defiled?
But you are a prostitute with many [b]lovers;
Yet you turn to Me,” declares the Lord.

No man would openly receive a wife that had sexual relation with other men because she humiliated her husband. If she pretends that nothing happened she is behaving like a prostitute. The reconciliation should begin with repentance that would manifest in words and actions. The Lord says that Israel and Judah behaves like a prostitute because they worshiped false gods.

3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no spring rain.
Yet you had a prostitute’s [c]forehead;
You refused to be ashamed.

The sin lead to lack of rain, but Israel and Judah refused to be ashamed, even worse, Judah asks the Lord:

4 ... Will He be angry forever,
Or keep His anger to the end?’
Behold, you have spoken
And have done evil things,
And you have [d]had your own way.”

Despite all this, the Lord wants the reconciliation:

12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say,
‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord;
‘I will not [h]look at you in anger.
For I am gracious,’ declares the Lord;
‘I will not be angry forever.
13 Only [i]acknowledge your wrongdoing,
That you have revolted against the Lord your God,
And have scattered your [j]favors to the strangers under every leafy tree,
And you have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the Lord.
14 ‘Return, you faithless sons,’ declares the Lord;
‘For I am a master to you,
And I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,
And bring you to Zion.’


The Lord promisses prosperity after the reconciliation:

15 “Then I will give you shepherds [k]after My own heart, who will feed you knowledge and understanding. 16 And it shall be in those days when you become numerous and are fruitful in the land,” declares the Lord, “they will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ And it will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor miss it, nor will it be made again. 17 At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the Lord,’ and all the nations will assemble at it, at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord; and they will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil heart. 18 In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

...

21 A voice is heard on the bare heights,
The weeping, the pleading of the sons of Israel.
Because they have perverted their way,
They have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 “Return, you faithless sons,
I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Behold, we come to You;
For You are the Lord our God.
23 Certainly the hills are a deception,
[m]Commotion on the mountains.
Certainly in the Lord our God
Is the salvation of Israel.

The Lord wants the reconciliation. In v22 the Lord says "I will heal your faithlessness". The one who receives the message says: "“Behold, we come to You;
For You are the Lord our God.".

Jeremiah 2: bulding broken cisterns that do not hold water

 In Jeremiah 2, we read that the Lord treated well Israel, but it abandoned the trust in the Lord.

5 This is what the Lord says:

“What injustice did your fathers find in Me,
That they went far from Me,
And walked after emptiness and became empty?

They don't remember what the Lord has done for them. They forget that they belong to a history much greater than the their own histories:

6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and of pits,
Through a land of drought and of [b]deep darkness,
Through a land that no one crossed
And where no person lived?’

They felt in idolatry:

6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and of pits,
Through a land of drought and of [b]deep darkness,
Through a land that no one crossed
And where no person lived?’

They commited two sins:

13 “For My people have committed two evils:
1) They have abandoned Me, The fountain of living waters,
2) To carve out for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That do not hold water.


Have I exchanged the God-made food that really satisfies provided by men-made drugs that only enslave me?


14-17 “Isn’t Israel a valued servant,
    born into a family with place and position?
So how did she end up a piece of meat
    fought over by snarling and roaring lions?

Am I a valued servant of the Lord?

It is really possible that I sin a lot, departed from the Lord and yet, see myself as a Good seeker man:

23-24 “How dare you tell me, ‘I’m not stained by sin.
    I’ve never chased after the Baal sex gods’!
Well, look at the tracks you’ve left behind in the valley.
    How do you account for what is written in the desert dust—
Tracks of a camel in heat, running this way and that,
    tracks of a wild donkey in rut,
Sniffing the wind for the slightest scent of sex.

The Lord loves me and wants to restore me:

25 “Slow down. Take a deep breath. What’s the hurry?
    Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway?

However, my flesh is inclined to keep in sin:

25 ...
But you say, ‘I can’t help it.
    I’m addicted to alien gods. I can’t quit.’

Lord, keep changing my ways so that I please you, so that I serve you.