Jeremiah 5 explained: Searching for One Honest Person

Looking for one honest person (vv. 1-6)

God promises to spare Jerusalem if even one honest person can be found, but Jeremiah finds that ordinary people and leaders alike have thrown off God's ways. The lion, wolf and leopard picture the invading enemy, usually understood to be Babylon.

A marriage betrayed (vv. 7-11)

Worshiping other gods is pictured as adultery, and the text also condemns real sexual unfaithfulness, made worse because God had given them plenty. The nation is pictured as a vine to be stripped of its branches but not destroyed completely.

"He will do nothing" (vv. 12-14)

The people insist disaster will never come and dismiss the prophets who warn of it as empty wind. God answers that Jeremiah's words will be like fire, and the people like the wood it burns.

An invader from far away (vv. 15-19)

An ancient nation with a language they cannot understand, generally taken to be Babylon, will strip their land of crops, flocks and vines and break down their fortified cities (translations differ on whether verse 17 says it devours their children or the food meant for them). Yet the end will not be total, and the punishment mirrors the wrong: they served foreign gods at home, so they will serve foreigners in a foreign land.

The sea obeys, people don't (vv. 20-25)

Even the roaring sea stays within the limit of the sand, but these people accept no limit from God. They never stop to fear the God who sends the autumn and spring rains that make harvest possible, and God says their wrongdoing has kept those good things away.

Corruption at every level (vv. 26-31)

Some grow rich by trapping people the way hunters trap birds, while orphans and the poor get no justice. Prophets tell lies and priests rule as they see fit (some translations say under the prophets' direction), and the people like it that way, with no thought for how it will end.

Key verse: Jeremiah 5:1

Something to think about

How could a whole society slide into dishonesty without most people noticing, and what might it take to see that from the inside?