Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo

Jeremiah 5

Jeremiah exposes a people who refuse God’s correction, trust false assurances, and face judgment that will stop short of total destruction.

Jerusalem is searched for someone who does justice and seeks truth, with pardon for the city at stake. Jeremiah finds refusal to heed God among both the poor and the powerful. YHWH exposes Judah’s unfaithfulness and announces an invading nation whose language the people cannot understand, while setting a limit on the destruction. The closing accusations name exploitation of the needy and religious leaders whose falsehoods have the people’s approval.

injustice and angerchurch hurtsermon or Bible study notes
Read
1“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there is anyone who does justly, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her.
2Though they say, ‘As the LORD lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”
3O LORD, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
4Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the LORD’s way, nor the law of their God.
5I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
6Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.
7“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.
8They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife.
9Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10“Go up on her walls, and destroy, but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s.
11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” says the LORD.
12They have denied the LORD, and said, “It is not he. Evil won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine.
13The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”
14Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.
15Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says the LORD. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.
16Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men.
17They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.
18“But even in those days,” says the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.
19It will happen when you say, ‘Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
21‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:
22Don’t you fear me?’ says the LORD; ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? Though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail. Though they roar, they still can’t pass over it.’
23“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.
24They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear the LORD our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’
25“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.
26For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men.
27As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich.
28They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.
29“Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.
31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Jeremiah 5:21The image of unused eyes and ears exposes the people’s refusal to recognize God’s authority despite his correction.
Jeremiah 5:22God’s rule over the sea throws Judah’s rebellion into sharp relief: the waves remain within the bounds he sets.
Jeremiah 5:31The closing accusation joins corrupt religious leadership with public approval, leaving the people to face the outcome of their choices.
Where this chapter reaches

Isaiah and Mark share the image of people who have eyes and ears yet fail to perceive or understand. Deuteronomy shares the warning of invasion by a nation with an unfamiliar language, while Job also describes God setting bounds that the sea cannot cross.

Jeremiah 5's chapter linksAll strongest linksHover or tap a book
Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What contrast do you notice between the sea’s bounds and the people’s response to God?

Write on this

How does the people’s approval of false prophecy shape your reading of the chapter’s final question?

Write on this

Questions people ask about Jeremiah 5

What does Jeremiah 5:21 mean by having eyes but not seeing?

The language describes a refusal to understand and respond to God. Earlier verses show the people rejecting correction and denying that judgment will come. The verses that follow point to God’s control of the sea and provision of rain, evidence the people fail to acknowledge with reverence.

What does Jeremiah 5:31 mean by “my people love to have it so”?

The phrase says that the people approve of prophets who speak falsehood and priests who rule by their own authority. The corruption extends beyond the leaders to those who welcome their conduct. The final question confronts the people with the outcome of an arrangement they prefer to keep.

Who is the invading nation in Jeremiah 5?

The chapter does not name the nation. It describes an ancient, mighty people coming from far away, speaking an unfamiliar language, and destroying food supplies and fortified cities. Babylon fits the wider setting of Jeremiah, but the emphasis here falls on the invader’s strength and God’s purpose in sending it.

Read it. Now write it.

Start an entry on Jeremiah 5. Your words go beside the text, and you get one next step for the week.

Jeremiah · 52 chapters
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152
What the Bible says about anger →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).