Jeremiah 34:21. "And Zedekiah king of Judah, and his princes I will give into the hands of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you." This comes after the reading I had yesterday which was from Chapter 28 of Jeremiah, but Jeremiah already knew then that the people were to submit to the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Back in chapter 28, Jeremiah was trying to tell them to accept this submission, in the hopes that Zedekiah, the king of Judah who had been put in place by and forced to swear fealty to Nebuchadnezzar, could at least remain in power and some semblance of order could be maintained. But of course, the people did not listen to him, and now God is getting more specific. Zedekiah rejected Jeremiah and squandered his chance to do any good at all. Jerusalem will not remain as anything like it once was - it will be desolate, just as prophesied. Zedekiah will be captured trying to escape, will see his sons killed before his eyes, and will have his eyes put out before being taken to Babylon and imprisoned for the rest of his life.

God uses prophets and prophecy to try to get us to repent and change our ways. Because He is outside time, He can see who will repent, like Nineveh did with Jonah, and who will not, like Judah with Jeremiah. However, because we are inside time, our fate is in our hands, our will remains free, and He gives us abundant chances and signs to change when we are going astray. Jeremiah started out by warning Judah in stark terms, but they did not listen. So God allowed Babylon to come in and take away many exiles, many of the treasures of the faith, and to establish a puppet king (surely now the people would see that Jeremiah had been speaking truth to them!?). God, through Jeremiah, continued to warn the people - "Bring your necks under the yolk of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live."  (Jeremiah 27:12). Once again, though, the people did not listen. (Although, when things got really desperate, Zedekiah did make a proclamation that all Hebrew slaves must be released, and the people complied, but then quickly took their slaves back, further angering God). Now God is promising the complete destruction of Judah - "I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant." (Jeremiah 34:22).

When I get multiple readings from the same book in a short period of time, I usually think God is trying to tell me something. Yesterday I alluded to how our country (and most of the world) had chosen to listen to false prophets and to deride, punish, and/or ignore those trying to tell us the truth. It may seem to many like that was an isolated episode and it is now over, much like it seemed Jerusalem would be left alone once Babylon retreated, but that is not the case. There has not been collective repentance. Some have repented and apologized, but for the most part, most of our leaders and "experts" who led us into this mess are acting like what they did never happened, and are ignoring the harm they caused, harm that continues to get worse and hurts the most vulnerable. Like the Hebrew slaves taken back into bondage, the injuries of the young, the poor, the unborn, and even the gullible, are crying out to God for justice, and the Lord hears their cries.

God is merciful, but He is also just. He is extending His time of mercy, just like He did in Jerusalem, and giving us plentiful, unignorable signs of what is happening and will happen if there is not collective repentance and justice. There is always time for individual repentance, but if there is still time for collective repentance (and I'm not so sure there is), we have to act fast, and that does not seem likely from what I'm seeing. If at all possible, we must become like Nineveh to Jonah, and not remain like Judah to Jeremiah. (Although I just went back and counted - since I started my blog in 2021, I have had 0 readings from Jonah, and 45 from Jeremiah, so I think there is definitely a message there!)