The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

Jeremiah

Jeremiah (626-586 B.C.) "yeremi yauw" (Yaweh will lift up).

He prophesied to Judah and against the surrounding nations. He emphasized the folly of idolatry as God pleaded with His people :

Jer 2:5-7 Thus says the LORD: "What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters? . . . I brought you into a bountiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled My land and made My heritage an abomination.

He continually warned that Jerusalem would be captured and the inhabitants exiled to Babylon.

Jer 5:15; 19:3 Behold, I will bring a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel," says the LORD. "It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. . . "Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle.

He prophesied against the pagan nations around (Jer 46-51) and also foretold that after 70 years the Jews would return from Babylon:

Jer 29:10-14 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah's words were vehemently rejected and he was heavily persecuted. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C Jeremiah was forced to live in Egypt. He prophesied much of the Messiah and His kingdom. His greatest prophecy was probably Chap. 31:

Jer 31:31-34 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant . . . No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."