Daily Devotions

The Book of Jeremiah combines history, biography, and prophecy. It portrays a nation in crisis and introduces the reader to an extraordinary person whom the Lord called to prophesy under the trying circumstances of the final days of the kingdom of Judah. 

Jeremiah was born, around 650 B.C., of a priestly family from the village of Anathoth, two and a half miles northeast of Jerusalem. He was called to his task in the thirteenth year of King Josiah (Jer 1:2). Josiah’s reform, began with enthusiasm and hope, ended with his death on the battlefield of Megiddo (609 B.C.) as he attempted to stop the northward march of the Egyptian Pharaoh

As a prophet, Jeremiah amongst other things, uses 6 key verbs (4 negative and 2 positive ).

Uproot - Tear Down - Destroy - Overthrow - Build - Plant

 Perhaps the most significant prophetic passage is found in chapter 31:31–33. 

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to[a] them,[b]”
declares the Lord.

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

The Lord is saying that a day is coming when the old covenant Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai would be fulfilled through a new covenant God will put in its place. We notice that there are 4 key parts to the new covenant described here: 1) a new heart, 2) a new relationship, 3) a new knowledge, and 4) a new forgiveness. God was saying He would some day supply a new covenant that, by His power, would start with the heart.

To respond to the Old Covenant, if we could possibly live faultlessly by the law, is to become righteous, to respond to the New Covenant is to become new.

A prayer by St. Ambrose of Milan (AD 339-397)

O Lord, who has mercy on all,

take away from me my sins,

and mercifully kindle in me

the fire of your Holy Spirit.

Take away from me the heart of stone,

and give me a heart of flesh,

a heart to love and adore you,

a heart to delight in you,

to follow and enjoy you, for Christ's sake, Amen