A Covenant They Refused to Keep
Our Father recalls the covenant made coming out of Egypt and names it broken; he tells Jeremiah to stop praying for the people. Then Jeremiah learns his own townsmen at Anathoth have plotted his death. He had been a lamb led along, noticing nothing, and asks for justice.
11 1The word that came to Jeremiah from our Father:
2"Hear the words of this covenant, and speak them to Judah's people and those living in Jerusalem. 3Tell them: This is what the Father of Israel says: Cursed is anyone who won't listen to the words of this covenant, 4which I commanded your ancestors the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying: Obey me and do all I command, so you will be my children and I will be your Father. a a v4 The iron furnace pictures Egypt's crushing slave labor — scorching, relentless bondage with no way out. 5Then I will keep the oath I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey—as it is today." I answered, "Amen, our Father."
6Our Father said to me: "Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem: Hear this covenant's words and obey them."
7"I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them up from Egypt, warning them again and again to this day: Obey me. 8But they did not obey or listen; each followed his own stubborn, evil heart. So I brought on them all the words of this covenant I commanded them to keep, but they did not."
9Our Father said to me: "A conspiracy exists among the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem. 10They have returned to the sins of their ancestors, who refused to hear my words. They have followed other gods to serve them. Israel and Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their ancestors." 11So this is what our Father says: I am bringing on them a disaster they cannot escape. Though they cry out to me, I will not listen. 12Then the cities of Judah and Jerusalem's people will go and cry to the gods they burn incense to, but these cannot save them at all in their time of trouble. 13Your gods are as many as your cities, Judah; the altars you set up for that shameful thing—altars to burn incense to Baal—match the streets of Jerusalem.
14"So do not pray for this people or raise any cry or prayer for them, for I will not listen when they call to me in their time of trouble. 15What right does my beloved have in my house, when she has carried out so many wicked schemes? Can sacred meat avert your doom? When your disaster comes, will you then rejoice?" b b v15 Sacred meat: the portions of animal sacrifices brought to the Temple as offerings to God.
16Our Father once called you a thriving olive tree, beautiful with well-formed fruit. But with the roar of a mighty storm our Father will set the tree on fire, and its branches will be broken.
17The Father of heaven's armies, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you, because of the evil Israel and Judah did—provoking my anger by burning incense to Baal.
A Plot Against Jeremiah
18Our Father made it known to me, and I knew; then you showed me their deeds. 19But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize they had plotted against me, saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that no one will remember his name." 20But Father of heaven's armies, you who judge righteously, who test the heart and the mind, let me see your justice on them, for I have committed my cause to you.
21So this is what our Father says about the people of Anathoth who seek your life, saying, Do not prophesy in the name of our Father, or we will kill you, c c v21 Anathoth was Jeremiah's own hometown, a priestly town just north of Jerusalem — so this plot against him came from his own neighbors and kin. 22so the Father of heaven's armies says: I am about to punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine. 23No remnant will survive; I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.
