A Celebration of Sin
The Babylonians are coming and God is tired of the sin.
At least that was the warning that Jeremiah spent 40 or 50 years trying to tell the Jews. Josiah had started restoring the temple and the law but it just wasn’t enough. The people had gotten so sinful they couldn’t even blush anymore. (Jeremiah 6:15) People were proud of the debauchery they could practice.
Jeremiah as painted on the Sistine Chapel
In Jeremiah 13:1-11, God compares a loincloth as it clings to the waist of a man to the way he wanted the children of Israel to cling to him. God laid out an excellent plan for his people. One that would insure they would never want for anything. For whatever reason, the lure of false gods and strange people was enough to abandon that security.
Just as the cloth rotted from being hidden in the damp rocks of the river, (Jeremiah 13:7) God decided he would allow the pride of his people rot. A people that would do such a thing are good for nothing. (Jeremiah 13:10)
God gave his people warning after warning, but it was always accompanied with an offer of forgiveness. That didn’t happen in this event or anywhere in chapter 13 for that matter. Bible scholars can argue over the exact meaning of the parts of this difficult prophesy, but one thing is clear:
The ruined loincloth is the illustration of how God feels when his children fail him.
Daily Bible reading for July 19
Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8
Joshua 21
Jeremiah 13
Matthew 26:30-75
July 19, 2013
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