Read: Jeremiah 37:1-38; 28; 1 Timothy 6:1-21; Psalm 89:38-52; Proverbs 25:28
Jeremiah is not arranged in chronological order for some reason. Yesterday, we read about Jehoiachin who was Josiah’s son. Jehoiachin was the one who cut up the scroll and put it in the fire. His successor was Zedekiah who we are reading about today. Zedekiah’s heart was not as hard as Jehoiachin’s. He actually begged Jeremiah to pray for the country and get a word from the Lord. At the time, Pharoah’s army had left Egypt to come and capture Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar’s army had surrounded Jerusalem and was besieging it until it heard about the Egyptians so it had left.
God told Jeremiah to tell the king that the Egyptians would not stay but that the Babylonians would return and finish the job. They would capture the city and burn it down. This was not what the king wanted to hear.
Jeremiah tried to leave the city to check on some property he had in the land of Benjamin but was arrested at the gate. He was falsely accused of deflecting to the Babylonian army and beaten and put in prison. He would have died there if the king hadn’t let him out to be fed and placed in the courtyard of the guard. There Jeremiah could still prophesy and warn the people to surrender to the Babylonians or they would die. Word came to the king that Jeremiah was bad for the morale of the army and the people who were still fighting to save the city. So, the king had him thrown into a cistern that had nothing but mud in it.
Ebed-Melich, and official in the royal palace beseeched the king on Jeremiah’s behalf and had him drawn out of the cistern with rags and ropes. He was allowed to stay in the courtyard again.
The king sent for Jeremiah privately to ask him what he should do. Jeremiah told him that if he would surrender to the Babylonians he would be spared and so would the city but if he didn’t surrender then he would be handed over to the Babylonians and the city would be burned.
Zedekiah made Jeremiah promise not to tell anyone of their conversation and he sent him back to the yard. Jeremiah told the people what the king had instructed him to say.
In Timothy, Paul urges the people to look higher than this earth. In the earth, riches have to do with what you have, but in the kingdom, riches are measured in what you do and how you love. To serve God with joy is the greatest prosperity you can have.
Lord, help us to seek your kingdom first.
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