Contemplative Bible Reading

Some thoughts about Bible verses

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Friends? Brothers?

September 26th, 2010 · No Comments

Jeremiah 9:4-6 (New International Version)

4 “Beware of your friends;
do not trust your brothers.
For every brother is a deceiver,
and every friend a slanderer.

5 Friend deceives friend,
and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie;
they weary themselves with sinning.

6 You live in the midst of deception;
in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,”
declares the LORD.

In these verses, these sad verses, the prophet Jeremiah describes what is happening among the people of the Lord. This is a time of disobedience. The people “know better;” they don’t have to obey the law that the Lord gave them.

Here are the friends:

  • beware of them
  • slanderers
  • deceivers
  • none speak the truth
  • liars
  • weary because they sin all the time

Here are the brothers:

  • not trustworthy
  • deceivers

This would be a dreadful place to live. Such is life when people don’t obey the Lord.

There are times when people seem to believe that, “Hey look. I can cheat on God and get away with it. See, lightning didn’t strike me. Ha ha ha.”

Disobeying God doesn’t bring lightning out of the sky to zap us. Instead, disobedience brings about a community like the one Jeremiah describes – a dreadful, distrusting, grimy community. Lightning out of the sky would be much kinder.

Tags: Jeremiah · Old Testament

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