Jeremiah 12

Jeremiah’s Complaint

1 You are always righteous, LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
2 You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.
3 Yet you know me, LORD; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!
4 How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.”

God’s Answer

5 “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble[a] in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by[b] the Jordan?
6 Your relatives, members of your own family— even they have betrayed you; they have raised a loud cry against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.
7 “I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies.
8 My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. She roars at me; therefore I hate her.
9 Has not my inheritance become to me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.
10 Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field; they will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.
11 It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares.
12 Over all the barren heights in the desert destroyers will swarm, for the sword of the LORD will devour from one end of the land to the other; no one will be safe.
13 They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing. They will bear the shame of their harvest because of the LORD’s fierce anger.”
14 This is what the LORD says: “As for all my wicked neighbors who seize the inheritance I gave my people Israel, I will uproot them from their lands and I will uproot the people of Judah from among them.
15 But after I uproot them, I will again have compassion and will bring each of them back to their own inheritance and their own country.
16 And if they learn well the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—even as they once taught my people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among my people.
17 But if any nation does not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it,” declares the LORD.

Cross References 44

  • 1. S Ezra 9:15; Job 8:3; Daniel 9:14
  • 2. S Job 5:8
  • 3. Ezekiel 18:25
  • 4. S Job 21:7,13; Psalms 37:7; Jeremiah 5:27-28
  • 5. S Jeremiah 11:17
  • 6. S Job 5:3
  • 7. S Isaiah 29:13; S Jeremiah 3:10; S Ezekiel 22:27; Matthew 15:8; Mark 7:6; Titus 1:16
  • 8. Psalms 7:9; Psalms 11:5; Psalms 139:1-4; Jeremiah 11:20
  • 9. S Psalms 44:11
  • 10. Jeremiah 16:18; Jeremiah 17:18; Jeremiah 20:11
  • 11. S Jeremiah 4:28
  • 12. S ver 11; S Jeremiah 4:26; Joel 1:10-12; Amos 1:2
  • 13. Deuteronomy 28:15-18; S Jeremiah 4:25; S Jeremiah 9:10
  • 14. Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44
  • 15. S Proverbs 26:24-25; Jeremiah 9:4
  • 16. Psalms 12:2
  • 17. S 2 Kings 21:14
  • 18. S Jeremiah 7:29
  • 19. Isaiah 5:1
  • 20. Jeremiah 17:4
  • 21. S Psalms 17:12
  • 22. Psalms 5:5; Hosea 9:15; Amos 6:8
  • 23. S Deuteronomy 28:26; Isaiah 56:9; Jeremiah 15:3; Ezekiel 23:25; Ezekiel 39:17-20
  • 24. Jeremiah 23:1; Jeremiah 25:34; Ezekiel 34:2-10
  • 25. Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 9:10; Jeremiah 25:11
  • 26. S Isaiah 5:6; S Isaiah 24:4
  • 27. ver 4; Isaiah 42:25; Jeremiah 9:12; Jeremiah 14:4; Jeremiah 23:10
  • 28. Ezekiel 21:3-4
  • 29. S Deuteronomy 32:41; Isaiah 31:8; Jeremiah 46:10; Jeremiah 47:6; Ezekiel 14:17; Ezekiel 21:28; Ezekiel 33:2
  • 30. S Deuteronomy 32:42
  • 31. Jeremiah 3:2
  • 32. Jeremiah 7:10
  • 33. S Leviticus 26:20; S Deuteronomy 28:38; Micah 6:15; Haggai 1:6
  • 34. S Exodus 15:7; S Jeremiah 4:26
  • 35. S Deuteronomy 29:28; S 2 Chronicles 7:20
  • 36. S Psalms 9:6; Zechariah 2:7-9
  • 37. S Deuteronomy 28:63
  • 38. S Psalms 6:2
  • 39. S Deuteronomy 30:3; Amos 9:14-15
  • 40. Jeremiah 18:8
  • 41. S Jeremiah 4:2
  • 42. S Joshua 23:7
  • 43. S Isaiah 26:18; Isaiah 49:6; Jeremiah 3:17
  • 44. S Genesis 27:29; Isaiah 60:12

Footnotes 2

Jeremiah 12 Commentaries

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