Devotions from Jeremiah

Passage Read: Jeremiah 1-4 Meditation Verses: 3:11-15 Apostasy is when people who should know God turn to other gods, while still claiming to follow the Lord. They claim to belong to the Lord, but they also seek the help of other gods, worshiping gods more…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 5-8 Meditation Verses: 7:2-4 This warning is for people coming to worship the Lord. They think that because the Temple is there, because they worship the Lord in His Temple, they think everything will be all right. They don't understand what it…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 9-12 Meditation Verses: 12:14-17 The Lord will cast out His people from their land because they did not obey Him. But afterwards, He promises to have pity on them and bring them back to their land, to restore their inheritance to them.

Passage Read: Jeremiah 13-16 Meditation Verse: 15:10 It is hard to be a prophet. When God sends a prophet, it is usually to a people He cares for but who have turned from His ways. They need correction because they have turned away from following…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 17-20 Meditation Verses: 19:14-15 Except in a few cases, prophets spoke to groups of people, not to individuals. The next chapter starts with a prophecy directed at the priest who imprisoned Jeremiah, an exception, but most of Jeremiah's messages are spoken to…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 21-24 Meditation Verses: 23:21-22 A good prophet is one who stands in the Lord's counsel, listens to His voice and tells the people what he hears. They don't need a special message, just the Words that have already been written! All anyone…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 25-28 Meditation Verse: 25:29 Judgment begins with the people of God, and if God finds fault with His own people, what will He do to those who do not follow Him at all? Of course He will find even greater fault! At…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 29-32 Meditation Verse: 32:33 Lord, You said You would make a new covenant with Your people, a covenant to write Your Law on their hearts and on their inward parts. Why then does it seem that "believers" today still seem so clueless…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 33-36 Meditation Verse: 33:3 This is a well known promise, God's invitation to come and ask Him to reveal great and mighty things, mysteries and future events. But in its immediate context, it begins with bad news, that the Lord will destroy…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 37-40 Meditation Verses: 39:16-18 In the midst of great disaster, God is able to promise to a foreign slave in the king's house that he will not die, but be given his life as a ransom because of his faith in the…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 41-44 Meditation Verses: 44:17-18 They remember it wrong or analyze it incorrectly because they don't understand the compassion of the Lord. While they sinned against Him, they enjoyed His mercy while He sent prophets to rebuke them and turn them from their…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 45-48 Meditation Verse: 46:28 Because God's people do not walk faithfully in His ways, He must discipline them. He will scatter them among the nations, sending them into exile, so it will not be a light discipline. He will discipline them with…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 49-52 Meditation Verse: 51:6 This same thing is said of the future Babylon, that the Lord's people should flee from it. This Babylon will never be rebuilt because the destruction of it was so complete, and God promised it would never rise…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 1-4 Meditation Verses: 4:1-2 Thought If God's people repent and return to the Lord, if they swear in truth and righteousness, "As the Lord loves," if they believe it and walk in His ways because they know He is true and real…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 5-8 Meditation Verses: 7:22-23 Thought The Law is all about how to walk in God's ways, how to do what is right and avoid what is evil. There were many commands, all of which teach what it means to love the Lord…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 9-12 Meditation Verses: 12:1-2 Thought Jeremiah's question is why do the wicked prosper, and the wicked he speaks of are people who have the Lord on their lips but far from their hearts. They are faithless people even though they always have…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 13-16 Meditation Verses: 14:13-16 Thought Though there are false prophets telling lies, that the people will not suffer but enjoy peace forever, yet the Lord does not excuse the people. He will punish the prophets and the people. The people are accursed,…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 17-20 Meditation Verses: 18:19-21 Thought Even Jeremiah can be pushed too far. He stood up on behalf of his people and pleaded for their rescue, their deliverance, but they plotted against him and planned to kill him. So he responded by asking…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 21-24 Meditation Verses: 23:28-29 Thought The Word of the Lord is powerful, like fire that burns up everything in its path or a hammer that shatters rock. Many people have their ideas about life and God and the world, but only God's…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 25-28 Meditation Verses: 28:15-17 Thought By speaking lies, the false prophet Hananiah ensured the nation would suffer and be exiled from their land, because he emboldened them to carry on in their sin rather than repent of it. He and others like…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 29-32 Meditation Verses: 32:39-40 Thought The Lord promises to do good to His people, to prosper and bless them as He has always promised. But His promise has always been predicated on their obedience to His ways. Even in this promise, He…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 33-36 Meditation Verses: 33:24-26 Thought It is a mistake to think that just because the Lord disciplines His people, even so severely as to drive them out of their land, it is a mistake to think that the Lord then hates His…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 37-40 Meditation Verse: 38:17 Thought Zedekiah could have saved Jerusalem, if he had only humbled himself and surrendered to the Babylonians. The city and the temple would have been preserved. But he refused to believe Jeremiah, and so all this disaster fell…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 41-44 Meditation Verses: 44:24-28 Thought Why does God even bother talking to these people? They have rejected Him to His face; they have declared their intent and fulfilled it to go against whatever He says. They rejected Jeremiah when they asked Jeremiah…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 45-48 Meditation Verses: 45:4-5 Thought The end of this age may be closer than anyone realizes, when the Lord overthrows everything men have built. So what will it matter if anyone seeks great things in this day? It will only be wasted…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 49-52 Meditation Verse: 51:45 Thought This sounds like the same call to flee Babylon in the future, before the return of Christ. Did they flee the city only or the whole country, because that would indicate what is needed in time to…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 1-4 Meditation Verse: 1:17 Jeremiah is a youth, yet he is called by God to proclaim His message of judgment and warning. He is called to speak to rulers and nations and crowds of people, and God warns him not to be…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 5-8 Meditation Verse: 6:16 Ecclesiastes tells us not to ask why the former days were better than the present, for that doesn't come from wisdom. But God tells Jeremiah that we should be seeking out the former ways, the ancient paths, the…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 9-12 Meditation Verse: 11:6 Jeremiah was commanded to go through the cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the Lord's covenant that the people had violated. City by city, town by town in Judah, and street by street in Jerusalem. There…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 13-16 Meditation Verses: 14:13-16 The Lord tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people because there is no hope for them; they will be cast out of the Lord's land. But Jeremiah sees the problem: Their prophets are telling them that everything…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 17-20 Meditation Verses: 20:7-8 This is the hard part of truly knowing the Lord and seeing as He sees. Every time Jeremiah opens his mouth, he speaks destruction and disaster and violence against his people. That's all he sees for his people,…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 21-24 Meditation Verses: 23:28-29 God is against all the prophets who speak out of their own ideas and dreams, who do not speak the Word of the Lord, but speak their own ideas and call them "the Word of the Lord." Yet…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 25-28 Meditation Verses: 28:13-17 It is interesting that God put Hananiah to death within three months of challenging Jeremiah's prophecy. There were other false prophets who didn't die, but did they take warning, at least for a short time? Worse than that,…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 29-32 Meditation Verses: 32:38-41 In the previous chapter, God tells of the new covenant He will make with the house of Israel, they He will put His law in their hearts, that all will know Him and no longer need anyone to…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 33-36 Meditation Verses: 34:15-16 The Israelites proclaimed freedom for the slaves they had made of their fellow Israelites, finally doing something that was right in the eyes of the Lord. They should have done it for each one at the end of…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 37-40 Meditation Verse: 38:17-18 If Zedekiah had humbled himself and surrendered to the king of Babylon, Jerusalem would have been spared. He had power to rescue the city and the temple. But he refused and so both were destroyed. He thought he…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 41-44 Meditation Verses: 42:19-22 God's word is far more clear than we're willing to admit. We claim that it is unclear or not really God's word, but some person's interpretation, and so we let ourselves off the hook. But we're only deceiving…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 45-48 Meditation Verses: 48:11-12 It is easy to think much of oneself when you have never been tested. It is easy to think you are very strong when you have never been attacked. Moab sat undisturbed for so long that they became…

Passage Read: Jeremiah 49-52 Meditation Verse: 51:5 The Lord has not forsaken Israel, though they have sinned greatly before the Lord. He has put many to death that did not repent, that refused to change their ways and worship Him alone, but He did not…