living water

Good morning friends,
This passage continues God's lament about Israel's faithlessness. There're are two main images in this passage that are related. One is the image of exchange: Israel has exchanged it's true God for false gods. The other image is futility: the things Israel has taken up are useless; things that don't profit instead of things of true value that God gave them. My favorite example in this passage is the image of the people abandoning God, the fountain of living water and making broken cisterns (water containers) for themselves that don't hold water.

How many of our choices come down to something like this? How often do we chose something new and shiny that turns out to be junk? How often do we try to set up our lives on our own instead of seeking the true life we only find in God? Fortunately, Jesus offers us that living water again. Jesus promises to give us water that will satisfy us entirely. It's never too late to come to the living waters of God. Come be refreshed.

God bless,
Sam


Jeremiah 2:9-19
9Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. 10Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. 11Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. 12Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, 13for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

14Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become plunder? 15The lions have roared against him, they have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant. 16Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head. 17Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way? 18What then do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what do you gain by going to Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates? 19Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.