Well, this reading was rough. If you followed along with the reading, you read about some of the prophecies that Jeremiah was famous for. I don’t know why God told Jeremiah to have some of these elaborate visual aids to go along with His words, but Jeremiah did as he was told, and he certainly faced opposition because of it. He had to tell a lot of people that they were being sinful and that God was going to destroy them because of their disobedience. Once again, Jeremiah was captured and given a death sentence, and once again, he tells them “You’ll be killing an innocent man and this prophecy is still going to happen.” He escapes the death penalty and lives to deliver more tough news that we’ll be reading in the next few weeks, but he only BARELY escapes. Ugh. I don’t know why people weren’t listening. I’d like to believe I would—but who knows?

Jeremiah is full of judgment and bad news. It can be tough to read, but chapter 17 is full of beautiful chunks of wisdom from God, little truths that are incredibly powerful instructions for life.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. … But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit’” (v. 5, 7-8, NLT).

Well, this is almost a repeat of last week’s reading.

God continued to tell Jeremiah to warn the people of coming destruction, painting a picture of extreme desolation – drought, famine, violence, death.

It occurred to me Jeremiah probably didn’t get invited over for dinner very often. In fact, in chapter 11, he says that God revealed to him that others plotted against him. Evidently, they thought getting rid of the messenger would also get rid of the message. Not so! God told Jeremiah He would severely punish those who were plotting against Jeremiah.