I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah is a deeply personal and emotionally charged prophetic work that chronicles warning, judgment, grief, and enduring hope. Written by Jeremiah, the book spans decades leading up to and including the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile. Jeremiah’s ministry unfolds during one of the most tragic periods in Israel’s history.
Jeremiah is called as a prophet while still young and immediately confronted with resistance. His message is unwelcome: Judah has broken covenant with God through idolatry, injustice, and empty religious ritual. Despite outward worship, the people’s hearts are far from the LORD. Jeremiah repeatedly warns that judgment is coming—not because God is absent, but because He is faithful to His covenant standards.
A central theme of Jeremiah is the cost of ignored repentance. The prophet pleads with the people to return to God, warning that reliance on the temple, political alliances, or false assurances will not save them. Judah’s leaders and false prophets promise peace, but Jeremiah exposes those promises as lies. Truth brings isolation, suffering, and persecution for the prophet himself.
The book is notable for its raw honesty. Jeremiah records his own anguish, fear, and frustration in passages often called the “confessions of Jeremiah.” He wrestles openly with God, expressing sorrow over judgment while remaining obedient to his calling. His tears earn him the title “the weeping prophet,” reflecting both compassion and faithfulness.
Judgment, however, is not the final word. Jeremiah also delivers profound promises of restoration. God declares that exile will not last forever and introduces the promise of a new covenant—one written on the heart rather than stone. This covenant speaks of forgiveness, transformed hearts, and restored relationship with God.
Jeremiah concludes with the fall of Jerusalem, validating the prophet’s warnings, yet pointing beyond devastation toward hope. Even in ruin, God’s purposes continue. Nations rise and fall, but God remains sovereign, faithful, and committed to redemption.
The Book of Jeremiah stands as a sobering reminder that God’s patience has limits, but His mercy endures. It calls readers to listen when God speaks, to take repentance seriously, and to trust that even in judgment, God is working toward restoration.
Jeremiah 18:18
Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
Jeremiah 18:19
Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.
Jeremiah 18:2
Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
Jeremiah 18:20
Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.
Jeremiah 18:21
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.
Jeremiah 18:22
Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.
Jeremiah 18:23
Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.
Jeremiah 18:3
Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
Jeremiah 18:4
And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jeremiah 18:5
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jeremiah 18:6
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:7
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
Jeremiah 18:8
If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
Jeremiah 18:9
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
Jeremiah 19:1
Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;
Jeremiah 19:10
Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
Jeremiah 19:11
And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.
Jeremiah 19:12
Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:
Jeremiah 19:13
And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
Jeremiah 19:14
Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD’S house; and said to all the people,
Jeremiah 19:15
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
Jeremiah 19:2
And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,
Jeremiah 19:3
And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.
Jeremiah 19:4
Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;
Jeremiah 19:5
They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:
Jeremiah 19:6
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.
Jeremiah 19:7
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the […]
Jeremiah 19:8
And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.
Jeremiah 19:9
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.