Day 223 (Jeremiah 14-17) - Year 8

“Even if Moses and Samuel asked me to spare these people the destruction, I'd still say no.” That is God’s response to Jeremiah in today’s reading, and it sets the tone for a stretch of Scripture where judgment is relentless, but so is God’s insistence on being known.

In Jeremiah 14–17, Judah is in the middle of a drought that has come as part of their judgment. They cry out to God, but as the host Tara Lee Cobble notes, they are not crying out for repentance—only for relief. Their prayer is beautiful, but most commentators believe it is actually Jeremiah praying on their behalf again, for two reasons: first, there have been no other signs of repentance from the people, and second, after the prayer, God tells Jeremiah again not to pray for them.

God’s response is a firm no. He says his plan is to deliver them over to sword, famine, and pestilence. Jeremiah pushes back, pointing out that these are exactly the things the false prophets have promised would not happen. But God makes clear that those prophets are not his prophets—they are making things up in their own minds or hearing from demons. In an ironic move of justice, God will have those prophets devoured by the very things they promised would not happen, alongside the people who believed them.

The Mediator’s Dilemma