Jeremiah · 31 verses
Jeremiah 5
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.
A single truth-seeking person could have rescued Jerusalem, which makes the search rather less like a census and more like a desperate game of hide-and-seek.
The search for one just personvv. 1–9
The streets and squares of Jerusalem are searched for one person who acts justly and seeks truth. The poor are suspected of ignorance; the powerful are tested and found to have broken the yoke as well. Then the city’s moral portrait takes an unexpectedly equine turn: its people are well-fed stallions, neighing after their neighbours’ wives. The question of punishment is asked twice, and neither time sounds especially theoretical.
The vineyard is ravaged, but not finishedvv. 10–19
The vineyards are handed over to ravagers, though with the peculiar instruction not to finish them off. Israel and Judah have both been unfaithful, while their people insist that no sword or famine will come. The prophets are dismissed as wind; in reply, the prophet’s mouth is made into fire. A distant, ancient nation arrives with an unintelligible language, open-grave quivers, and an appetite for harvests, families, flocks, vines, fig trees, and fortified cities. Yet even then, the destruction has a boundary: there will not be a full end.
Eyes that do not seevv. 20–31
The people have eyes and ears, but neither seems to be on speaking terms with understanding. The sea obeys its sandy boundary; the people do not obey anything of the sort, having stubborn and rebellious hearts. Their sins divert rain and harvest, while wicked men set traps for others and fill their houses with deceit. The final scene is a land where prophets prophesy falsely, priests rule themselves, and the people rather enjoy the arrangement—leaving the last question hanging in the air.
The text
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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 5:1“Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares. If you can find a single person, anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, then I will forgive the city.
Jer 5:2Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ they are swearing falsely.”
Jer 5:3O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
Jer 5:4Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
Jer 5:5I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.
Jer 5:6Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.
Jer 5:7“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.
Jer 5:8They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife.
Jer 5:9Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
Jer 5:10Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.
Jer 5:11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the LORD.
Jer 5:12They have lied about the LORD and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.
Jer 5:13The prophets are but wind, for the word is not in them. So let their own predictions befall them.”
Jer 5:14Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes.
Jer 5:15Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.
Jer 5:16Their quivers are like open graves; they are all mighty men.
Jer 5:17They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.”
Jer 5:18“Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.
Jer 5:19And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”
Jer 5:20Declare this in the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah:
Jer 5:21“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.
Jer 5:22Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.
Jer 5:23But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone away.
Jer 5:24They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
Jer 5:25Your iniquities have diverted these from you; your sins have deprived you of My bounty.
Jer 5:26For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.
Jer 5:27Like cages full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become powerful and rich.
Jer 5:28They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy.
Jer 5:29Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
Jer 5:30A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land.
Jer 5:31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?’’
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. 432 passages were voted onto 30 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 14Jeremiah 23:29“Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?”
- 22Psalms 104:9You set a boundary they cannot cross, that they may never again cover the earth.
- 22Job 38:10–11when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,
- 21Ezekiel 12:2“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.
- 21Acts 28:26‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
- 22Job 26:10He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
- 14Jeremiah 1:9Then the LORD reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
- 22Deuteronomy 28:58If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—
- 22Proverbs 8:29when He set a boundary for the sea, so that the waters would not surpass His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.
- 22Psalms 119:120My flesh trembles in awe of You; I stand in fear of Your judgments.
- 21Isaiah 6:9–10And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
- 22Nahum 1:4He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
- 22Jeremiah 10:7Who would not fear You, O King of nations? This is Your due. For among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.
- 1Genesis 18:23–32Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
- 21Romans 11:8as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”
- 22Mark 4:39Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!” And the wind died down, and it was perfectly calm.
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