Old Testament
Jeremiah
Jeremiah prophesied through the hardest years of Judah's history, weeping over a people who would not listen. Yet in the ruins he held out hope: a God with plans to give a future, and the promise of a new covenant written on the heart.
Jeremiah 1
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
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Jeremiah 3
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 3:22
Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. “Behold, we have come to you; for you are the LORD our God.
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Jeremiah 6
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 6:16
The LORD says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
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Jeremiah 9
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 9:23-24
The LORD says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for I delight in these things,” says the LORD.
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Jeremiah 15
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, the LORD, God of Armies.
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Jeremiah 16
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 16:16
“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
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Jeremiah 17
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
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Jeremiah 24
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 24:7
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.
Read the passage article - Jeremiah 24:8-10
“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth amongst all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence amongst them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”
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Jeremiah 26
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 26:24
But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that they didn’t give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.
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Jeremiah 29
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 29:3
by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon). It said:
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:4-10
The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Don’t let your prophets who are amongst you and your diviners deceive you. Don’t listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamt. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them,” says the LORD. For the LORD says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word towards you, in causing you to return to this place.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:5-6
“Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:5-7
“Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.”
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:10
For the LORD says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word towards you, in causing you to return to this place.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think towards you,” says the LORD, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.
Read the passage article - Jeremiah 29:12-13
You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:13
You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 29:24-28
Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, “The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, “The LORD has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in the LORD’s house, for every man who is crazy and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles. Now therefore, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who makes himself a prophet to you, because he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long. Build houses, and dwell in them. Plant gardens, and eat their fruit?”’”
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Jeremiah 31
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 31:15
The LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 31:33
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
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Jeremiah 32
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 32:1-15
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘The LORD says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah won’t escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes will see his eyes; and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says the LORD, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper?”’” Jeremiah said, “The LORD’s word came to me, saying, ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.”’” “So Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to the LORD’s word, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself.’ “Then I knew that this was the LORD’s word. I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances to him. So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open; and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard. “I commanded Baruch before them, saying, the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days.’ For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: ‘Houses and fields and vineyards will yet again be bought in this land.’
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 32:17
“Ah Lord GOD! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.
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Jeremiah 38
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 38:6
Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.
Discussed in: - Jeremiah 38:7-13
Now when Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king was then sitting in Benjamin’s gate), Ebedmelech went out of the king’s house, and spoke to the king, saying, “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon. He is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.” Then the king commanded Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take from here thirty men with you, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he dies.” So Ebedmelech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took from there rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Now put these rags and worn-out garments under your armpits under the cords.” Jeremiah did so. So they lifted Jeremiah up with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon; and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
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Jeremiah 50
Passages discussed across 316Quotes
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- Jeremiah 50:2
“Declare amongst the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal; say, ‘Babylon has been taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed! Her images are disappointed. Her idols are dismayed.’
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More about Jeremiah
Jeremiah is the prophet of the long, hard goodbye. He spoke to Judah through its final decades, watching a nation he loved slide towards disaster because it would not listen. He is sometimes called the weeping prophet, and the book earns the name. There is real grief in it, real frustration, real loneliness. But Jeremiah is not a book of despair. Even as everything falls apart, he keeps holding out a hope that runs deeper than the ruins, and that combination of honesty and hope is part of why it still speaks to us.
What makes Jeremiah so human is that he does not hide his own struggle. He argues with God, he complains, he wishes he had never been born to carry this message. The book lets us see a faithful person having a genuinely hard time, and there is comfort in that. Faith here is not a smooth, untroubled thing. It is someone keeping going through tears and doubt, still speaking the truth even when no one wants to hear it. If you have ever felt that obedience cost you more than it gave, Jeremiah understands.
And yet, in the middle of all the warning, the promises shine. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the best known verses in the Bible: for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. It is worth remembering that those words were written to people heading into exile, not out of it. The hope was real but not quick. God was promising a future on the far side of a long, painful season, which is exactly why the verse means so much to people walking through their own.
Perhaps the most moving promise is the one about the heart. In 24:7 God says he will give his people a heart to know him, and elsewhere Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant, God's law written within rather than on stone. The message underneath is that no one is too far gone. A people who had ruined nearly everything were told that God would still reach in and change them from the inside. So read Jeremiah when you feel you have failed too badly to be reached. Its tears are honest, but its hope is honest too, and the hope gets the last word.
Questions about Jeremiah
- What does Jeremiah 29:11 really mean?
- Jeremiah 29:11 says God knows the plans he has for his people, plans to prosper them and not to harm them, to give them hope and a future. It is hugely popular, and rightly loved, but it helps to know its setting. These words were written to people going into exile in Babylon, told they would be there for seventy years. The hope was genuine but not immediate. So the verse is not a promise that life will go smoothly now. It is a promise that God holds a good future for his people even when the present is hard, and that the painful season is not the end of the story.
- Why is Jeremiah called the weeping prophet?
- Jeremiah spoke during Judah's last and darkest years, warning a people who would not listen and watching the disaster he foretold come true. He grieved openly over it, and the book is full of his sorrow, frustration and even arguments with God. The nickname fits because he did not hide how much his calling cost him. Far from being a weakness, that honesty is part of the book's gift. It shows a faithful person struggling, weeping and continuing anyway, which is a truer picture of obedience than any tidy, untroubled version of faith.
- What is the new covenant Jeremiah talks about?
- Jeremiah speaks of God making a new kind of agreement with his people, one where his law is written on their hearts rather than on tablets of stone, and where they truly know him. In 24:7 God promises to give them a heart to know him, signalling that he will change people from the inside out. The hope is that no one is beyond his reach, even a people who had wrecked nearly everything. Christians understand this new covenant as fulfilled in Jesus, but its tenderness stands on its own: God promising to do in us what we could never do for ourselves.
Topics in Jeremiah
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