Reflections on Jeremiah 25

Jeremiah 25 (Contemporary English Version)
1. In the fourth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, which was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia, the LORD told me to speak to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. So I told them:
   
2. (SEE 25:1)
   
3. For twenty-three years now, ever since the thirteenth year that Josiah was king, I have been telling you what the LORD has told me. But you have not listened.
   
4. The LORD has sent prophets to you time after time, but you refused to listen.
   
5. They told you that the LORD had said: Change your ways! If you stop doing evil, I will let you stay forever in this land that I gave your ancestors.
   
6. I don't want to harm you. So don't make me angry by worshiping idols and other gods.
   
7. But you refused to listen to my prophets. So I, the LORD, say that you have made me angry by worshiping idols, and you are the ones who were hurt by what you did.
   
8. You refused to listen to me,
   
9. and now I will let you be attacked by nations from the north, and especially by my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. You and other nearby nations will be destroyed and left in ruins forever. Everyone who sees what has happened will be shocked, but they will still make fun of you.
   
10. I will put an end to your parties and wedding celebrations; no one will grind grain or be here to light the lamps at night.
    
11. This country will be as empty as a desert, because I will make all of you the slaves of the king of Babylonia for seventy years.
    
12. When that time is up, I will punish the king of Babylonia and his people for everything they have done wrong, and I will turn that country into a wasteland forever.
    
13. My servant Jeremiah has told you what I said I will do to Babylonia and to the other nations, and he wrote it all down in this book. I will do everything I threatened.
    
14. I will pay back the Babylonians for every wrong they have done. Great kings from many other nations will conquer the Babylonians and force them to be slaves.
    
15. The LORD God of Israel showed me a vision in which he said, "Jeremiah, here is a cup filled with the wine of my anger. Take it and make every nation drink some.
    
16. They will vomit and act crazy, because of the war this cup of anger will bring to them."
    
17. I took the cup from the LORD's hand, and I went to the kings of the nations and made each of them drink some.
    
18. I started with Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and the king and his officials were removed from power in disgrace. Everyone still makes insulting jokes about them and uses their names as curse words.
    
19. The second place I went was Egypt, where everyone had to drink from the cup, including the king and his officials, the other government workers, the rest of the Egyptians,
    
20. and all the foreigners who lived in the country. Next I went to the king of Uz, and then to the four kings of Philistia, who ruled from Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what was left of Ashdod.
    
21. Then I went to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon,
    
22. and to the kings of Tyre, Sidon, and their colonies across the sea.
    
23. After this, I went to the kings of Dedan, Tema, Buz, the tribes of the Arabian Desert,
    
24. (SEE 25:23)
    
25. Zimri, Elam, Media,
    
26. and the countries in the north, both near and far. I went to all the countries on earth, one after another, and finally to Babylonia.
    
27. The LORD had said to tell each king, "The LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, commands you to drink from this cup that is full of the wine of his anger. It will make you so drunk that you will vomit. And when the LORD sends war against the nations, you will be completely defeated."
    
28. The LORD told me that if any of them refused to drink from the cup, I must tell them that he had said, "I, the LORD All-Powerful, command you to drink.
    
29. Starting with my own city of Jerusalem, everyone on earth will suffer from war. So there is no way I will let you escape unharmed."
    
30. The LORD told me to say: From my sacred temple I will roar like thunder, while I trample my people and everyone else as though they were grapes.
    
31. My voice will be heard everywhere on earth, accusing nations of their crimes and sentencing the guilty to death.
    
32. The LORD All-Powerful says: You can see disaster spreading from far across the earth, from nation to nation like a horrible storm.
    
33. When it strikes, I will kill so many people that their bodies will cover the ground like manure. No one will be left to bury them or to mourn.
    
34. The LORD's people are his flock, and you leaders were the shepherds. But now it's your turn to be butchered like sheep. You'll shatter like fine pottery dropped on the floor. So roll on the ground, crying and mourning.
    
35. You have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. *
    
36. Listen to the cries of the shepherds,
    
37. as the LORD's burning anger turns peaceful meadows into barren deserts.
    
38. The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion leaving its den.

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Jeremiah's most detailed message about Judah's exile in Babylon is given in this chapter. Though this is the last of Jeremiah's messages of judgment on Judah recorded in the book, it is not the last chronologically. From the first 14 verses we know:

• This message is to all people of Judah and Jerusalem.
  
• Jeremiah had repeatedly given God's message of judgment to the people and other prophets had done the same and yet they had not obeyed.
  
• The reason for the judgment is because they had followed other gods and had done evil. If they were to stop doing these two things judgment would be avoided.
  
• Because of these sins God was going to send the people of Babylon, under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to completely destroy Judah and the nations surrounding Judah.
  
• Judah and these other nations would serve Babylon for 70 years. 
  
• Following these 70 years of captivity God was going to completely destroy Babylon. Though most of the nations destroyed by Babylon would be restored, Babylon would never again exist.

2 Chronicles 36:21 tells us that the 70 years of captivity was to serve as a "Sabbath rest" for the land, also known as a Jubilee. It would make up for the years that Judah did not observe this commandment to give the land a rest every 7 years. Of note in the reason given for Judah's judgment is that God told them what they must stop doing to avoid judgment but not what they must do. In other words, God does not force us to worship Him but there are consequences for the behavior that inevitably occurs when people do not worship Him. We would say that many people who do not worship God are good people, but in such an evaluation we are using only our standard for good. The sin that stirs up God's anger more than any other is our worship of other gods, thus giving credit to objects of our imagination for what God has done. Regardless of how "good" a person might be by any other standard, giving credit elsewhere for what God has done brings them under His condemnation. Many in this current day of science seem to "worship" science and its assumptions in place of God.

The latter verses of the chapter give a prophecy of condemnation on all nations of the world at that time. God told Jeremiah to "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and make all the nations I am sending you to drink from it. They will drink, stagger, and go out of their minds because of the sword I am sending among them." (25:15-16) Other verses point out that if God was going to punish His own people for their sin, how could He ignore the greater sins of these heathen nations?