Jeremiah 37 (HCSB)
Jerusalem’s Last Days
1 Zedekiah son of Josiah reigned as king in the land of Judah in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made him king. 2 He and his officers and the people of the land did not obey the words of the Lord that He spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.
3 Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest, to Jeremiah the prophet, requesting, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us!” 4 Jeremiah was going about his daily tasks among the people, for they had not yet put him into the prison. 5 Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans, who were besieging Jerusalem, heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem.
6 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: 7 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: This is what you will say to Judah’s king, who is sending you to inquire of Me: Watch: Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, is going to return to its own land of Egypt. 8 The Chaldeans will then return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down. 9 This is what the Lord says: Don’t deceive yourselves by saying, ‘The Chaldeans will leave us for good,’ for they will not leave. 10 Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire Chaldean army that is fighting with you, and there remained among them only the badly wounded men, each in his tent, they would get up and burn this city down.”
Jeremiah’s Imprisonment
11 When the Chaldean army withdrew from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army, 12 Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to claim his portion there among the people. 13 But when he was at the Benjamin Gate, an officer of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, and he apprehended Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.”
14 “That’s a lie,” Jeremiah replied. “I am not deserting to the Chaldeans!” Irijah would not listen to him but apprehended Jeremiah and took him to the officials. 15 The officials were angry at Jeremiah and beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison. 16 So Jeremiah went into a cell in the dungeon and stayed there many days.
Jeremiah Summoned by Zedekiah
17 King Zedekiah later sent for him and received him, and in his house privately asked him, “Is there a word from the Lord?”
“There is,” Jeremiah responded, and he continued, “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” 18 Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you or your servants or these people that you have put me in prison? 19 Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, claiming, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you and this land’? 20 So now please listen, my lord the king. May my petition come before you. Don’t send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, or I will die there.”
21 So King Zedekiah gave orders, and Jeremiah was placed in the guard’s courtyard. He was given a loaf of bread each day from the baker’s street until all the bread was gone from the city. So Jeremiah remained in the guard’s courtyard.
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
SIN (verse 9): Father, forgive me for often believing in the deceptive lies whispered in my head. Just as your people fell into the trap of self-deception, I too have fallen into this quite often in my life. When times begin to look good for me, I falter in other ways. Those “other ways” are almost always my time with You, Father. Please forgive me of this as I am quite immature in my faith and easily deceived. Help me to build stronger resistances to the world, the enemy, and my own flesh so that no matter if things are going good or bad, I am always focused on You.
PROMISE (verses 9-10): You make us a promise here, that no matter what things may appear to be in the present, that You are faithful to Your promises. Your people disobeyed You heavily, but You assured them that although it may appear the Chaldeans are pulling away, that they are only doing that temporarily. I see this as an “eye of the storm” type of moment when I have often made many mistakes in my faith journey. We’re in the middle of some type of traumatic event and experience a little calm in that storm so we begin to relax and let our guard down thinking it’s over. Once that happens, we are the most vulnerable. Thank You for being faithful to Your promises, Father, regardless of if they are positively or negatively received. Your promises and faithfulness to those promises show us how much You love us and I am grateful for that.
ATTITUDE (verse 2): Help me to have an attitude of obedience to You, Father. Your people failed to have an attitude of obedience to You in this Scripture, which eventually led to great suffering for them. Remind me in those moments that I do falter, that obedience to You is more important than anything else in this life. Remind me to stay strong through the storms that will come, but especially in the “eye of the storms” so that I do not become complacent or regress in my faith walk with You, Father.
COMMAND (verse 2): This verse also contains an obvious command from You. You command us to obey Your words that have been spoken to us through Your written word and spoken through Your messengers. Help me to be better at this, Father. Help me to not only be in Your word consistently, but to also take Your word into my heart so I obey them. Help me to discern when someone has come to me as a messenger of Your truths, Father, versus what the world often tries to throw into my path as a false messenger.
EXAMPLE (verses 13-21): In this portion of Scripture, Jeremiah gives us such a powerful example to learn from in this life. He had remained faithful to You by relaying the messages You asked him to relay, no matter the consequences. In this Scripture, however, we can see how the world is against us through all things when we are truly faithful to You. Through his faithfulness, he was thrown into jail over lies the world has spoken against him, yet he did not falter. He was beaten by those who falsely judged him, yet he still did not falter from his faithfulness to You, Father. Even when delivered to King Zedekiah, he remained faithful to you with the likely fleshly fear of death sitting in the back of his head the entire time. He delivered a fearful and negative message from You to King Zedekiah yet again through his faithfulness to You. He did not falter at all in his faithfulness to You, no matter the obstacles this life and the enemy tried to put in his path. Help me to live by this example that Jeremiah gives us, Father, so that I may begin to live a life truly filled with stories of faithfulness to You throughout it that my family can remember and use to build their faith even stronger than my own.
*DAILY NOTE: It’s amazing how You are able to speak to me, Father, even in the oddest of Scriptures. This one on my first 2-3 reads did not seem to provide enough lessons at first to be able to complete a full journal on this, but I kept leaning on You throughout my slow progression of understanding of this Scripture. I was finally able to receive what You were speaking to me as I began to truly embrace the words written on these two pages. Thank You so much for being able to speak to me even when I am struggling to listen. Thank You for always having a lesson and good counsel for me, even when I struggle to see it in the moment. Thank You for Your faithfulness to me, Father, even when I have failed so often throughout my life.
*GENERAL NOTE: I always "sandwich" my quiet time with God in prayer and do it in a location that I will not have any distractions so that I can be focused on my quiet time with God. Do not worry about how short or long your journal entries are for that day's quiet time. Just focus on the actual quiet time and relational conversation with God through the Holy Spirit and His Word. The journaling is an enhancement to your quiet time conversation with God, but also to allow you to reflect on things later as you can look back on your journal entries later when you do the chapters again in the future to see how you have grown. See the FAQ for more detail on how I do my quiet time.
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