The Lord told Jeremiah to remind the people what the Lord had been telling them for 23 years. If they stopped worshiping idols and worshiped God he would take care of them in the land. If not, they would be taken captive to Babylon for 70 years. After that the king of Babylon would be punished and they would be restored into the land. Later God showed Jeremiah a vision. God gave Jeremiah a cup filled with the wine of God's anger. He was to take it and make every nation drink some. In his vision, Jeremiah took the cup to all the nations on the earth beginning with Judah and ending with Babylon. Disaster was coming and so many of the people would die that their bodies would cover the ground like manure. The Lord would also punish the leaders.
God told Jeremiah to go to the courtyard of the temple and speak to the people who had traveled from all over Judah to be there. He was to tell them that if they stopped sinning, the Lord would change his mind and not punish them. The people were warned that if they didn't start obeying God right away, He would destroy the temple. The people got mad at Jeremiah and shouted that he should die! Jeremiah told them that if they killed him, they would be killing an innocent man since he was just saying what the Lord told him to say. They decided they didn't need to kill Jeremiah. Some other leaders from other towns reminded them about Micah and the things he had said. They reminded them that they let Micah live and those people had listened and the Lord didn't destroy Jerusalem even though he said he would. So if Jeremiah were killed that would bring a terrible disaster on Judah. Ahikam, an improtant man spoke up for Jeremiah as well, so they didn't kill him.
Not long after Zedekiah became king of Judah the Lord told Jeremiah to make a yoke of wood with leather straps and put it on his neck. Then go and give the kings gathered to meet with Zedekiah a message. Jeremiah did as he was told. The message for the kings was that God had decided it would be Nebuchadnezzar in charge of all the nations. In fact, they would all be his slaves! After his grandson became ruler, many nations would join together and become powerful enough to make slaves of the Babylonians. The yoke represented the power of king Nebuchadnezzar, and the Lord would destroy any nation which refused to obey him. So now the choice was obey Nebuchadnezzar or die. Jeremiah told them that all the furnishings in the temple would be taken to Babylon until God decided otherwise.
Tomorrow read Jeremiah 28-31:20
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