The book of Jeremiah begins with God calling Jeremiah to be a prophet and giving him a dual vocation. He was to be a prophet to Israel and the nations, and his words would “uproot and tear down,” and also “plant and build up” (Jer. 1:10). In other words, Jeremiah was to accuse Israel and warn them of God’s coming judgment, but he was to also give a message of hope for the future. This introduction perfectly summarizes the first large section, chapters 1-24, consisting of a collection of Jeremiah’s writings from before the exile.
The core idea here is that Israel has broken their covenant with God and violated all the terms of the agreement in a number of ways. They’ve adopted the worship of all kinds of Canaanite gods and built idol shrines all over the land. Jeremiah uses a metaphor of idolatry as adultery, and he uses the language of prostitution, promiscuity, and unfaithfulness to describe how Israel has given their allegiance to other gods. Jeremiah also repeatedly accuses Israel’s corrupt leaders. Their priests, kings, and prophets have all abandoned the Torah and the covenant, leading to the tragic consequence of rampant social injustice. The most vulnerable in their communities, the widows, orphans, and immigrants, are being taken advantage of in clear violation of the laws of the Torah, and Israel’s leaders don’t even care.
A classic place where all these themes come together is in chapter 7, called Jeremiah’s temple sermon. Israelites are coming to worship their God in the Jerusalem temple as if everything is fine. Outside the temple, however, they are worshiping other gods, even adopting the horrifying Canaanite practice of child sacrifice. So Jeremiah makes this very unpopular announcement—the God of Israel is coming in judgment to destroy his own temple and punish Israel by sending an “enemy from the north.” This is an army that God would allow to conquer Jerusalem, known as the great empire of Babylon.
This leads up to the turning point in chapter 25. Israel has still not turned back to their God, so in the first year of Babylon’s new king, Nebuchadnezzar, God tells Jeremiah to announce that their armies were coming to conquer and take Israel into exile for 70 years. He compares Babylon to a cup of wine, filled with God’s righteous anger at all Israel’s injustice and idolatry, and he says that he will make Israel and the surrounding nations drink from that cup. This chapter is the key to the book’s design, as everything that follows will focus on Babylon’s coming attacks, first on Israel (chs. 26-45) and then on the other nations (chs. 46-51).
