The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt;
disaster came upon them,
declares the Lord.”
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord:
“What wrong did your fathers find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?
6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?’
7 And I brought you into a plentiful land
to enjoy its fruits and its good things.
But when you came in, you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the shepherds transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal
and went after things that do not profit.
9 “Therefore I still contend with you,
declares the Lord,
and with your children's children I will contend.
10 For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see,
or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
14 “Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?
Why then has he become a prey?
15 The lions have roared against him;
they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste;
his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16 Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have shaved the crown of your head.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the Lord your God,
when he led you in the way?
18 And now what do you gain by going to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19 Your evil will chastise you,
and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
declares the Lord God of hosts.
20 “For long ago I broke your yoke
and burst your bonds;
but you said, ‘I will not serve.’
Yes, on every high hill
and under every green tree
you bowed down like a whore.
21 Yet I planted you a choice vine,
wholly of pure seed.
How then have you turned degenerate
and become a wild vine?
22 Though you wash yourself with lye
and use much soap,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,
declares the Lord God.
23 How can you say, ‘I am not unclean,
I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley;
know what you have done—
a restless young camel running here and there,
24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness,
in her heat sniffing the wind!
Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves;
in her month they will find her.
25 Keep your feet from going unshod
and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless,
for I have loved foreigners,
and after them I will go.’
26 “As a thief is shamed when caught,
so the house of Israel shall be shamed:
they, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets,
27 who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’
and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their back to me,
and not their face.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
‘Arise and save us!’
28 But where are your gods
that you made for yourself?
Let them arise, if they can save you,
in your time of trouble;
for as many as your cities
are your gods, O Judah.
29 “Why do you contend with me?
You have all transgressed against me,
declares the Lord.
30 In vain have I struck your children;
they took no correction;
your own sword devoured your prophets
like a ravening lion.
31 And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel,
or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, ‘We are free,
we will come no more to you’?
32 Can a virgin forget her ornaments,
or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me
days without number.
33 “How well you direct your course
to seek love!
So that even to wicked women
you have taught your ways.
34 Also on your skirts is found
the lifeblood of the guiltless poor;
you did not find them breaking in.
Yet in spite of all these things
35 you say, ‘I am innocent;
surely his anger has turned from me.’
Behold, I will bring you to judgment
for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’
36 How much you go about,
changing your way!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt
as you were put to shame by Assyria.
37 From it too you will come away
with your hands on your head,
for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,
and you will not prosper by them. Jeremiah 2 ESV
Jeremiah 2 Israel Forsakes the Lord
…5Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. 6And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.” 7So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him.… Exodus 19: 5-7
1-3. Your love as a bride - Israel was set apart from all the peoples, God revealed Himself to her, chose her, brought her out of captivity in Egypt. Of all the world she was called out to be a kingdom of priest, to know and worship the true God, and then make Him known to the world. She followed the Lord through a land not sown, for 40 years she survived in a land that could not support her, where she could not keep herself in. God fed her from heaven and revealed His law to her, the way in which she should walk.
4-13. What wrong did your fathers find in me - I have heard many a philosopher, so called "great mind", try to answer this or give an answer for their falling away from belief. Some never acknowledged God to begin with, others said they proved the Bible wrong (I tried that), most relied on someone else telling them that, "there is no God, the Bible is fiction, or I feel that, to me it's like this, I prefer the idea of, the God I believe in would or wouldn't, I don't like the God of the Bible." For Israel it is an interesting question of spiritual heritage. "Your fathers", who he fed where there was no food, watered them and their flocks where there was no water, brought into a land of plenty, where was the fault in God that caused them to turn from Him to things made by Him and idols made by their own hands? What causes men to trust their own fallen minds and love the affirmation of other broken minds over God's word? Personally, I think men would prefer to believe in anything that honors them, that they can manipulate or fit in with, rather than a God Who is above them and outside of their control.
But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit - "Look', He says, 'go to the surrounding nations, the ones I chased out before you, the ones that exist today even. Even these pagans, who worship the inventions of their own minds, do not forsake their worthless gods. Your fathers were the first fruits of true worshipers, those that knew the only true God, intellectually assenting to His being, yet they left Me for things that are unprofitable, irrational."
…22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.… Romans 1: 22-24
…19At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image. 20They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox. 21They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,… Psalm 106: 19-21
Be appalled, O heavens, at this - They forsook the source of all life, and then to top off their insanity, they built broken cisterns to collect water that they could not provide, and that would leach out through the holes in their flawed vessels. When they can't bring the rain they cry out to their idols, and if by chance it rains any time near to this, or they win some money off numbers they saw in a dream, then they have all the evidence they need, their religion is good to them. Their prophets and priests had failed them, they wouldn't confront these disasters, they were naturalists, spiritualists, whatever was popular at the time.
14-19. Is Israel a slave - Are you not children, adopted of the Lord? How is it that you have come out of His protection? We know from Isaiah that it is because of their sin.
The lions have roared against him - The northern tribes have already been taken by Assyria, and the audience of Jeremiah lies at the brink of and early on in Babylon's siege and captivity of Judah. Babylon is sometimes represented by the lion.
17Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.” 18Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.… Jeremiah 50: 17-18
Have shaved the crown of your head - By now, a good king, Josiah, would have been killed by Pharaoh Necho, yet Judah, against the warning of the prophets, still wants to go to Egypt for help.
The fear of Me is not in you - This is their problem all along, the place from where their apostasy rises. They won't repent, so they seek another source of help. These people have turned to Assyria before and now would go back to where they were redeemed from, Egypt, the place that looked down on Hebrews.
…13If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people, 14and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. 15Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.… 2 Chronicles 7: 13-15
20-25. You bowed down like a whore - After swearing fidelity to the Creator, like those who take wedding vows, they went and worshiped other gods. They even blended the worship that the Canaanites found acceptable into their Judaism. There were temple prostitutes though God spoke against fornication and adultery. There was homosexuality though God called that an abomination, and nature shows it not to be a union which results in life. They loved polygamy though it showed the divisive nature of their hearts, the infidelity of their religion, disloyalty to the God Who made them male and female, and said, the two will become one flesh.
…13He also removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole. Asa chopped down the pole and burned it in the Kidron Valley. 14The high places were not removed, but Asa’s heart was fully devoted to the LORD all his days. 15And he brought into the house of the LORD the silver and gold and other articles that he and his father had dedicated.… 1 Kings 15: 13-15
…42Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-five years. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi. 43And Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of his father Asa; he did not turn away from them, but did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. The high places, however, were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. 44Jehoshaphat also made peace with the king of Israel.…1 Kings 22: 42-44
26-28. As a thief is shamed when caught - One of the most attractive things to me about being an atheist was that I only had to worry about getting caught. I would have no remorse for the sin itself, it was only the consequences that came from getting caught. Now suppose there is this ultimate law, and the wages of breaking it is death, both physical eventually and spiritually right away, well then it won't matter what I got a way with here. How many men did you fool? How many lies did people believe? All that is only compounded against an eternally omniscient God. Tis a sin not to call it as it is, as God, the Creator of all has called it.
Who say to a tree, 'you are my father', and to a stone, 'you gave me birth' - Sadly, Israel should have had the least confusion as to their origin, but apply it even to our day, when men are supposedly more enlightened. Anything, that men hold things in common with, they will think they come from. Since they cannot accept God as the eternal Being and force behind Creation, then some will go so far as to call matter eternal or say quite forcefully, but without any possible reason other than hope or want, that everything just came into being from nothing just because.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis. 1:1) This was written by Moses through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit about 1500 B.C. In 1820 A.D. a man named Hubert Spencer gave the world five scientific principles by which man may study the unknown. They are time, force, energy, space, and matter. However, Moses, by inspiration, gave us those scientific principles in Genesis 1:1.
"In the beginning" --time;
"God"-- force;
"created" -- energy;
"the heavens" --space;
"and the earth" -- matter.
“There is strong satire here, for it is the female symbol [tree] that is called Father and the male symbol [stone] that is called You who gave me birth. Israel was confused about what she was worshipping when she ascribed to the gods of fertility her very existence.” (Thompson)
For as many as your cities - And people get mad when you use sarcasm, but basically the prophet is telling them, you turned your back to God, He wasn't hip enough for you, and now you are in trouble. Don't worry though, you have at least as many gods as you have cities in Judah, so you should be in great shape. Let them save you, the things you made with your hands and your imagination. After all, the majority has to be right and there is strength in numbers, billions of people don't believe in the God that calls Himself "I Am", the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. You are in good company, besides, there is nothing to fear in dying because there is nothing after you die, right?
29-32. Why do you contend with Me - Have you lost your minds? Do you think you have a leg to stand on?
…9Surely hope of overcoming him is false. Is not the sight of him overwhelming? 10No one is so fierce as to rouse Leviathan. Then who is able to stand against Me? 11Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.… Job 41: 9-11
Your own sword devoured your prophets - You cut yourself off from hearing God's word, you killed the prophets who would not tickle your ears. You hated the messenger, Isaiah did not go in one piece.
We are free - They needed to repent of being unrepentant. This people had been given so much from God, the word, the testimony, the prophets, the land, and the temple. Their heritage was deep and not without communication and intervention from God, so where does this pride come from that says we need not go to Him anymore? We need not humble ourselves, we are Abraham's children.
1What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?… Romans 6: 1-2
14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. 15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?… Romans 6: 14-16
8Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved! 9What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin. 10As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.… Romans 3: 8-10
33-37. How well you direct your course to seek love - You say, "love is love is love", and base right in this upon how it feels, or the fact that you have come to feel no shame or guilt. Your measure is your own broken sense of righteousness, your direction is a compass that points not to true north, but to what you feel and like. As long as you say love you believe that what you seek can't be wrong, regardless of what God says.
You have taught your ways - This is how we justify it, and let me bring you in to a little religion, some self righteousness and ritual, but no repentance, only a form of godliness, denying the power thereof.
…5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these! 6 They are the kind who worm their way into households and captivate vulnerable women who are weighed down with sins and led astray by various passions, 7who are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.… 2 Timothy 3: 5-7
The blood of the lives of the poor innocents - They didn't die breaking into your house. The aborted child doesn't die from forcing itself into the womb. Someone has to pay for breaking God's law, and it is not going to be you. Fallen morality, Godlessness, these things plead to a society to step further into futility, to gross immorality, to attacking the innocent, preying upon the young, taking advantage of the poor. We have sex trafficking, abortion, child pornography, strip clubs, wife swapping and yet you still claim that you need not repent. You still see yourself as just in all these things, even as an advocate for good, a hero to minorities, an upstanding and compassionate citizen. Well, I suppose if there is no God as described in the Bible, then all those things you think are just as true as anything else.
· Many of these also must teach others their ways, advocating them in the general society, hoping to normalize what was once considered sinful or perverted.
· The poor innocents suffer – unborn children are killed, homes are wrecked, perversion imposes itself on innocents. - Enduring Word
The Lord has rejected those in whom you trust - You say your innocent, but you should look at the word of God and see what He says, that is a better mirror. You go to those who will support your claim to innocence or be hired on by you as mercenaries, but God rejects them as saviors. He saves from sin, not to sin. Israel's political and religious leaders had not led well, and the people thought they were good, everyone is right in their own eyes.
…29Moreover, the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind, for He is not a man, that He should change His mind.” 30“I have sinned,” Saul replied. “Please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel. Come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God.” 31So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD.…
…32Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him cheerfully, for he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” 33But Samuel declared: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal. 34Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.…
And to the day of his death, Samuel never again visited Saul. Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15: 29-35
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