Day 166: What part of no? – Jeremiah 5 vs 7 – 19

7-9 “How can I pardon you? For even your children have turned from me. They have sworn by gods that are not gods at all!  I fed my people until they were full. But they thanked me by committing adultery and lining up at the brothels. They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbour’s wife. Should I not punish them for this?” says the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself against such a nation? 10 “Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy the grapevines, leaving a scattered few alive. Strip the branches from the vines, for these people do not belong to the Lord. 11-13 The people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against me,” says the Lord. “They have lied about the Lord  and said, ‘He won’t bother us! No disasters will come upon us. There will be no war or famine. God’s prophets are all windbags who don’t really speak for him. Let their predictions of disaster fall on themselves!’”

14 Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies says: “Because the people are talking like this, my messages will flame out of your mouth and burn the people like kindling wood. 15-17 O Israel, I will bring a distant nation against you,” says the Lord. “It is a mighty nation, an ancient nation, a people whose language you do not know, whose speech you cannot understand. Their weapons are deadly; their warriors are mighty. They will devour the food of your harvest; they will devour your sons and daughters. They will devour your flocks and herds; they will devour your grapes and figs. And they will destroy your fortified towns, which you think are so safe.

18 “Yet even in those days I will not blot you out completely,” says the Lord. 19 “And when your people ask, ‘Why did the Lord our God do all this to us?’ you must reply, ‘You rejected him and gave yourselves to foreign gods in your own land. Now you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’“ Jeremiah 5:7-19 New Living Translation (English Standard Version link)

Today's reading starts with a question from God as He says to the nation: “How can I pardon you?” Another Bible version puts it as: “Why should I forgive you?” What word comes to your mind to describe the people from God's words in vs 7-9 where He ends up saying “should I not punish you for this?”

Probably quite a few words would fit, but the one that came to me was 'ungrateful'. God had done so much for them, but they repaid Him with contempt and disobedience. Not only that, look what they said about the prophets God had sent to warn them of the danger they were heading for heading for. (vs 11-13)

So what did God say He was going to do to these rebellious people who didn't understand the meaning of no. (vs 15-17)

Because they would not listen to plain Hebrew (their own language) God was going to use a mighty nation (the Babylonians) whose language they didn't understand to discipline them. God was using a punishment that fitted their crime. They mocked the plain words of their prophets, so God would punish them with foreigners – they were turning to worship idols, so God was using an idolatrous nation to plunder them. We can think of the apostle Paul's warning in Galatians 6:7-8 where he says: “Don't be deceived - God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

Being ungrateful to God is one of the charges God laid against the whole world. Romans 1:21 says that 'although people knew God, they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks.' Yet even in all this, there was a ray of hope. Look at what vs 18 said.

How privileged we are to have God's message of salvation in our own language. May our lives express daily our gratitude to Him for not blotting us out for our sins but letting us hear of Jesus Christ in a way that we could understand.