The Berean Pursuit
"The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus,
engraved with a diamond point
on the tablets of their hearts
and on the horns of their altars.
Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles
by the green trees and on the high hills.
O My mountain in the countryside,
I will give over your wealth
and all your treasures as plunder,
because of the sin of your high places,
within all your borders.
And you yourself will relinquish
the inheritance that I gave you.
I will enslave you to your enemies
in a land that you do not know,
for you have kindled My anger;
it will burn forever."
This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind,
who makes the flesh his strength
and turns his heart from the LORD.
He will be like a shrub in the desert;
he will not see when prosperity comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in Him.
He is like a tree planted by the waters
that sends out its roots toward the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes,
and its leaves are always green.
It does not worry in a year of drought,
nor does it cease to produce fruit.
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
I, the LORD, search the heart;
I examine the mind
to reward a man according to his way,
by what his deeds deserve.
Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay
is the man who makes a fortune unjustly.
In the middle of his days his riches will desert him,
and in the end he will be the fool."
A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,
is the place of our sanctuary.
O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who abandon You will be put to shame.
All who turn away will be written in the dust,
for they have abandoned the LORD,
the fountain of living water.
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;
save me, and I will be saved,
for You are my praise.
Behold, they keep saying to me,
"Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it come now!"
But I have not run away from being Your shepherd;
I have not desired the day of despair.
You know that the utterance of my lips
was spoken in Your presence.
Do not become a terror to me;
You are my refuge in the day of disaster.
Let my persecutors be put to shame,
but do not let me be put to shame.
Let them be terrified,
but do not let me be terrified.
Bring upon them the day of disaster
and shatter them with double destruction.
This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at all the other gates of Jerusalem.
Say to them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates. This is what the LORD says: Take heed for yourselves; do not carry a load or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. You must not carry a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day, but you must keep the Sabbath day holy, just as I commanded your forefathers. Yet they would not listen or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and would not listen or receive My discipline.
If, however, you listen carefully to Me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath day holy, and do no work on it, then kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city. They will sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses with their officials, along with the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. And people will come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, and from the foothills, the hill country, and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the LORD.
But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.'?"
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Go down at once to the potter's house, and there I will reveal My message to you."
So I went down to the potter's house and saw him working at the wheel. But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? Just like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed. But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.
And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom, and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it.
Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: 'Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.'
But they will reply, 'It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'?"
Therefore this is what the LORD says:
"Inquire among the nations:
Who has ever heard things like these?
Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
Does the snow of Lebanon
ever leave its rocky slopes?
Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance
ever run dry?
Yet My people have forgotten Me.
They burn incense to worthless idols
that make them stumble in their ways,
leaving the ancient roads
to walk on rutted bypaths
instead of on the highway.
They have made their land a desolation,
a perpetual object of scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
and shake their heads.
I will scatter them before the enemy
like the east wind.
I will show them My back and not My face
in the day of their calamity."
Then some said, "Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words."
Attend to me, O LORD.
Hear what my accusers are saying!
Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn Your wrath from them.
Therefore, hand their children over to famine;
pour out the power of the sword upon them.
Let their wives become childless and widowed;
let their husbands be slain by disease,
their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
Let a cry be heard from their houses
when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.
But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me.
Do not wipe out their guilt
or blot out their sin from Your sight.
Let them be overthrown before You;
deal with them in the time of Your anger.
This is what the LORD says: "Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate.
Proclaim there the words I speak to you, saying, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring, because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal-something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.
So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.
I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds. I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.'
Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you, and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter's jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.
This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth-all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods."
Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people, "This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: 'Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.'?"
When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.
The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, "The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. For this is what the LORD says: 'I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. And I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away to Babylon and put them to the sword. I will give away all the wealth of this city-all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah-to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon. And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried-you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied these lies.'?"
You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived.
You have overcome me and prevailed.
I am a laughingstock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I cry out;
I proclaim violence and destruction.
For the word of the LORD has become to me
a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, "I will not mention Him
or speak any more in His name,"
His message becomes a fire burning in my heart,
shut up in my bones,
and I become weary of holding it in,
and I cannot prevail.
For I have heard the whispering of many:
"Terror is on every side!
Report him; let us report him!"
All my trusted friends
watch for my fall:
"Perhaps he will be deceived
so that we may prevail against him
and take our vengeance upon him."
But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior.
Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail.
Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame,
with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten.
O LORD of Hosts, who examines the righteous,
who sees the heart and mind,
let me see Your vengeance upon them,
for to You I have committed my cause.
Sing to the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
For He rescues the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers.
Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
saying, "A son is born to you,"
bringing him great joy.
May that man be like the cities
that the LORD overthrew without compassion.
May he hear an outcry in the morning
and a battle cry at noon,
because he did not kill me in the womb
so that my mother might have been my grave,
and her womb forever enlarged.
Why did I come out of the womb
to see only trouble and sorrow,
and to end my days in shame?
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes of the Dispersion:
Greetings.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The brother in humble circumstances should exult in his high position. But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its flower falls and its beauty is lost. So too, the rich man will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.
When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.
My beloved brothers, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man's anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves. For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so-not being a forgetful hearer, but an effective doer-he will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.