Jeremiah · 37 verses
Jeremiah 2
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
Judah has made so many gods that, when trouble arrives, the whole city-count of them is summoned to the rescue. It is a splendidly unhelpful crowd: trees called fathers, stones credited with birth, and idols numerous as the cities of Judah.
A bride who forgot the fountainvv. 1–13
The word comes to Jeremiah, carrying a recollection of Israel’s first devotion: a bride following through the wilderness, and a people holy as the firstfruits. Then the question turns sharp. The fathers abandoned the one who brought them from Egypt and led them through desert, drought, darkness, pits, and an untravelled land. Priests, experts in the law, leaders, and prophets have all managed to lose the question, “Where is the LORD?” The people were brought into a fertile land and made the inheritance detestable. The charge is neatly doubled: the fountain of living water was forsaken, and broken cisterns were dug instead.
Foreign waters and a shaved crownvv. 14–19
Israel is asked why he has become prey, while young lions roar and cities lie empty. Then comes one of the chapter’s sudden little mysteries: the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of Israel’s head, and no explanation is supplied. The people are reminded that this ruin followed the forsaking of the LORD. Egypt offers the Nile; Assyria offers the Euphrates; neither journey promises much beyond disappointment. The trouble, the text says, is already travelling with them: their own evil will discipline them.
Trees, stones, and the city-count of godsvv. 20–37
The accusation becomes wonderfully physical. A broken yoke, a vine turned wild, washing that cannot remove guilt, a camel rushing about, and a donkey sniffing the wind: the chapter has no shortage of comparisons. Israel denies being defiled while the evidence is laid out in the valley, and the skirts of the guilty are stained with the blood of the innocent poor. Kings, officials, priests, and prophets address a tree as father and a stone as mother, then ask those same handmade divinities to rise and save them when trouble comes. There are supposedly as many gods as cities in Judah, which makes the emergency meeting both very large and rather unpromising. The people insist on innocence; Egypt and Assyria, meanwhile, will disappoint them both.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Jer 2:1Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 2:2“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Jer 2:3Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her were found guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD.
Jer 2:4Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all you families of the house of Israel.
Jer 2:5This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves.
Jer 2:6They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
Jer 2:7I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable.
Jer 2:8The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.
Jer 2:9Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children.
Jer 2:10Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and take a look; send to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this:
Jer 2:11Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.
Jer 2:12Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the LORD.
Jer 2:13“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jer 2:14Is Israel a slave? Was he born into slavery? Why then has he become prey?
Jer 2:15The young lions have roared at him; they have sounded their voices. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.
Jer 2:16The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head.
Jer 2:17Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way?
Jer 2:18Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
Jer 2:19Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
Jer 2:20“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.
Jer 2:21I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?
Jer 2:22Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.
Jer 2:23“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,
Jer 2:24a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her.
Jer 2:25You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’
Jer 2:26As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets
Jer 2:27say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’
Jer 2:28But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.
Jer 2:29Why do you bring a case against Me? You have all rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD.
Jer 2:30“I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
Jer 2:31You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’?
Jer 2:32Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
Jer 2:33How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.
Jer 2:34Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things
Jer 2:35you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
Jer 2:36How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.
Jer 2:37Moreover, you will leave that place with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those you trust; you will not prosper by their help.”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 606 passages were voted onto 37 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 13John 4:14But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
- 13John 7:37On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
- 13Jeremiah 17:13O 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.
- 13Revelation 21:6And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.
- 13Psalms 36:9For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.
- 13Revelation 22:1Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
- 2Ezekiel 16:60But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
- 21Isaiah 5:4What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?
- 2Ezekiel 16:8Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.
- 11Romans 1:23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
- 13Isaiah 55:2Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods.
- 11Isaiah 37:19They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.
- 21Exodus 15:17You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O LORD, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.
- 21John 15:1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard.
- 7Deuteronomy 8:7–9For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;
- 11Jeremiah 16:20Can man make gods for himself? Such are not gods!”
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