The Broken Flask
The Lord told Jeremiah to buy a potter’s earthenware flask and take some of the elders of the people and priests to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. There he was to tell them that the Lord was going to bring disaster upon them and that place, and that the ears of everyone who heard of it would tingle.
Because the people had forsaken the Lord and profaned in that place by making offerings to other gods that no one had known; shed the blood of the innocent; built high places to Baal and burnt their sons as offerings which the Lord had not commanded, that place would be called the Valley of Slaughter.
In that place, the Lord would make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and would cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those that sought their lives. Their dead bodies would be food for the birds and the beasts, and the city would be a horror.
Then Jeremiah would break the flask in the sight of the men who went with him and say, Thus says the Lord of hosts: “So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended.”
Then Jeremiah went from Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house. He told the people how the Lord was bringing upon the city and all its towns disaster, because the people had stiffened their necks and refused to hear the Lord’s words.
Jeremiah Persecuted by Pashhur
Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesy those things. So Pashhur beat Jeremiah and put him in the stocks.
The next day when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him that the Lord would not call his name Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. The Lord said, that He would make for him a terror to himself and to all his friends.
They would fall by the sword of their enemies, while Pashhur looked on. He continued saying that Judah would be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he would be carried captive to Babylon where he would be struck down with the sword.
Moreover, the wealth of the city and all its grains, prized belongings, and the treasures of the kings of Judah would be given into the hand of their enemies, who would plunder them and carry them to Babylon.
He continued by telling Pashhur that him and all who dwelled in his house would go into captivity. They would go to Babylon and there they would die and be buried. Him, and all of his friends who had prophesied falsely.
Jeremiah spoke to the Lord and felt deceived because he had said all that the Lord had commanded him, and had become a laughingstock and mocked by everyone.
Every time Jeremiah spoke he cried out “Violence and destruction!” The word of the Lord for him had become a reproach and derision. He knew that he could not disobey the Lord, and was unable not to say what he was commanded to communicate to the people. He knew he could not hold it in, even though the consequences were getting to him.
Jeremiah heard the people talking and saying things like, “Terror is on every side! Denounce him!” and all were watching for his fall, hoping he would be deceived so they could overcome him and take out their revenge.
But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble;
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly ashamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
-Jeremiah 20:11
O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous,
who sees the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you have I committed my cause.
-Jeremiah 20:12
Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hand of the evildoers.
-Jeremiah 20:13
Jeremiah went on to curse the day he was born, his mother who bore him, and the man who brought the news to his father. He wished he was killed in the womb and his mother would have been his grave, keeping her womb forever great. He questioned, why he was born to see toil and sorrow and to spend his days in shame.
Jerusalem Will Fall to Nebuchadnezzar
When King Zedekiah sent Pashhur to Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord because Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was making war against them, he was hoping the Lord would deal with them according to all of His wonderful deeds and would not withdraw from them.
Jeremiah told him to tell Zedekiah that the Lord said He would turn back the weapons of war that were in their hands and with which they were fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who were besieging them outside the city walls. They would be brought together into the midst of the city and He would fight with them in anger, fury, and great wrath.
The Lord would strike down all the inhabitants of the city, both man and beast, and they would die with great pestilence. Afterward, any who survived would be given sword and famine and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hands of their enemies.
Thus says the Lord:
Behold, I set before you
the way of life
and the way of death.”
-Jeremiah 21:8
The Lord had set his face against the city for harm and not for good. It would be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he would burn it with fire.
Message to the House of David
They were told to execute justice in the morning and deliver from the hand of the oppressor. His wrath would go forth like fire and burn with nothing to quench it because of their evil deeds. The Lord was against them and He would punish them according to the fruit of their deeds.
The Lord told them to do justice and righteousness and deliver them from the hand of the oppressor. They were to do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in that place.
If they were to obey those words then there would be kings to sit on the throne of David. But if they didn’t, the house would become a desolation.
Concerning the king of Judah, the Lord said that destroyers would be prepared against him with weapons, and they would cut down their choicest cedars and cast them into the fire.
Many nations would pass by the city, and all would see and question why the Lord had dealt thusly with it. They would answer because they had forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped others gods and served them they were destroyed.
Message to the Sons of Josiah
Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, went away from that place and he would not return. In the place of where they had carried him captive, he would die and never see that land again.
Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice.
-Jeremiah 22:13
He had eyes and heart only for his own dishonest gain, and shed innocent blood. He practiced oppression and violence.
Therefore concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, it was said that no one would lament for him. With the burial of a donkey he would be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
He refused to listen to the Lord and had been that way since the youth, and had not obeyed the voice of the Lord.
Though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, was the signet ring on the right hand, he would be torn off and given into the hands of his enemies, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
Him and the mother who bore him would be hurled into another country, where he was not born, and there he would die. Him and his offspring would not succeed in sitting on the throne of David or ruling in Judah again.