Jeremiah 14:1-21

1 God's Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought:

2 "Judah weeps, her cities mourn. The people fall to the ground, moaning, while sounds of Jerusalem's sobs rise up, up.

3 The rich people sent their servants for water. They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry. They came back with empty buckets, wringing their hands, shaking their heads.

4 All the farm work has stopped. Not a drop of rain has fallen. The farmers don't know what to do. They wring their hands, they shake their heads.

5 Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field because there is no grass -

6 Eyes glazed over, on her last legs, nothing but skin and bones."

7 We know we're guilty. We've lived bad lives - but do something, God. Do it for your sake! Time and time again we've betrayed you. No doubt about it - we've sinned against you.

8 Hope of Israel! Our only hope! Israel's last chance in this trouble! Why are you acting like a tourist, taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?

9 Why do you just stand there and stare, like someone who doesn't know what to do in a crisis? But God, you are, in fact, here, here with us! You know who we are - you named us! Don't leave us in the lurch.

10 Then God said of these people: "Since they loved to wander this way and that, never giving a thought to where they were going, I will now have nothing more to do with them - except to note their guilt and punish their sins." The Killing Fields

11 God said to me, "Don't pray that everything will turn out all right for this people.

12 When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won't listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I'll not accept them. I'm finishing them off with war and famine and disease."

13 I said, "But Master, God! Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right - no war and no famine - that there's nothing to worry about."

14 Then God said, "These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don't talk with them. The sermons they've been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.

15 "So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, 'War and famine will never come here' - these preachers will die in war and by starvation.

16 And the people to whom they've been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied - no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I'll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.

17 "And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them: "'My eyes pour out tears. Day and night, the tears never quit. My dear, dear people are battered and bruised, hopelessly and cruelly wounded.

18 I walk out into the fields, shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses. I walk into the city, shocked by the sight of starving bodies. And I watch the preachers and priests going about their business as if nothing's happened!'"

19 God, have you said your final No to Judah? Can you simply not stand Zion any longer? If not, why have you treated us like this, beaten us nearly to death? We hoped for peace - nothing good came from it; We looked for healing - and got kicked in the stomach.

20 We admit, O God, how bad we've lived, and our ancestors, how bad they were. We've sinned, they've sinned, we've all sinned against you!

21 Your reputation is at stake! Don't quit on us! Don't walk out and abandon your glorious Temple! Remember your covenant. Don't break faith with us!

Jeremiah 14:1-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 14

This chapter contains prophecy of a drought, which produced a famine, Jer 14:1, and is described by the dismal effects of it; and general distress in the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, Jer 14:2, even the nobles were affected with it, whose servants returned without water ashamed, when sent for it, Jer 14:3, the ploughmen could not use their plough, their ground was so hard, Jer 14:4 and the very beasts of the field suffered much, because there was no grass, Jer 14:5,6, upon this follows a prayer of the prophet to the Lord, that he would give rain for his name's sake; he confesses the sins of the people, that they were many, and against the Lord; and testified against them, that they deserved to be used as they were; and he addresses the Lord as the hope and Saviour of his people in time past, when it was a time of trouble with them; and expostulates with him, why he should be as a stranger and traveller, and like a mighty man astonished, that either had no regard to their land any more than a foreigner and a traveller; or no heart to help them, or exert his power, than a man at his wits' end, though he was among them, and they were called by his name; and therefore he begs he would not leave them, Jer 14:7-9, but he is told that it was for the sins of the people that all this was, which the Lord was determined to remember and visit; and therefore he is bid not to pray for them; if he did, it would not be regarded, nor the people's fasting and prayers also; for they should be consumed by the sword, famine, and pestilence, Jer 14:10-12, and though the prophet pleads, in excuse of the people, that the false prophets had deceived them; yet not only the vanity and falsehood of their prophecies are exposed, and they are threatened with destruction, but the people also, for hearkening unto them, Jer 14:13-16, wherefore the prophet, instead of putting up a prayer for them, has a lamentation dictated to him by the Lord, which he is ordered to express, Jer 14:17,18, and yet, notwithstanding this, he goes on to pray for them in a very pathetic manner; he expostulates with God, and pleads for help and healing; confesses the iniquities of the people; entreats the Lord, for the sake of his name, glory, and covenant, that he would not reject them and his petition; and observes, that the thing asked for (rain) was what none of the gods of the Heathens could give, or even the heavens themselves, only the Lord; and therefore determines to wait upon him for it, who made the heavens, the earth, and rain, Jer 14:19-22.