Jeremiah 11 explained: A Broken Agreement and a Plot

Remember the agreement (vv. 1-8)

God recalls the covenant, a binding agreement made after the escape from slavery in Egypt, a place pictured as a furnace hot enough to melt iron: obey, and you will be my people and keep this land. Jeremiah answers "Amen," meaning "so be it," and many scholars link this message to the old law book found in the temple during King Josiah's reforms.

Deliberately turning away (vv. 9-13)

The "conspiracy" is a settled, shared decision to go back to worshiping other gods, so widespread that Judah has as many gods as towns. Baal was a Canaanite storm and fertility god, and the text pairs his name with the word for shame to show how worthless and disgraceful that worship is.

Stop praying for them (vv. 14-15)

Because the people have broken the covenant and keep serving other gods, Jeremiah is told not to plead for them, since God will not listen when they cry out in their distress. Verse 15 is hard to translate, but the point seems to be that offering sacrificed meat at the temple cannot shield people who keep worshiping other gods.

The burning olive tree (vv. 16-17)

Israel and Judah are pictured as a thriving olive tree that God himself planted, an image of richness and blessing. Now it will be set on fire and its branches broken; scholars are unsure whether the roar is a thunderstorm or an invading army, but either way it pictures coming destruction.

A lamb that didn't know (vv. 18-20)

Jeremiah had no idea people were plotting to kill him and wipe out his message, the "tree and its fruit," until God showed him. He openly asks God to take vengeance on them, and Christians later read his "lamb led to the slaughter" as an echo of Jesus.

Judgment on Anathoth (vv. 21-23)

Anathoth was Jeremiah's hometown, a town of priests a few miles from Jerusalem, and its men threatened to kill him if he kept speaking in God's name. The reply is stark: their young men will die by the sword, their children by famine, and no one will be left.

Key verse: Jeremiah 11:10

Something to think about

Why might the people who know someone best be the least willing to hear hard things from them?