“They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.”
Jeremiah 31:12 ESV
Through the Bible: Jeremiah 30-31
If you are trying to maintain the discipline of reading through the entire Bible, there are some stretches that are harder than others.
Jeremiah is one of them.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love the book of Jeremiah. There are passages in Jeremiah that are among my favorites in the entire Bible. But thirty chapters into the book, it can get pretty heavy.
Judah has rebelled against God. The people have worshiped idols. The prophets have lied. The priests have failed. Kings have refused to listen. Babylon is coming, Jerusalem is going to fall, and God has repeatedly told Jeremiah that judgment is unavoidable.
And poor Jeremiah has to preach all of it.
He’s been mocked. Threatened. Beaten. Put in stocks. He’s argued with God. He’s cursed the day he was born. At one point he decides he’s just going to stop preaching altogether, only to discover that God’s Word is like a fire shut up in his bones.
It’s a lot.
Then you get to Jeremiah 31.
And suddenly, after miles and miles of desert, there’s water.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
Jeremiah 31:3
Keep reading.
“Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines
and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.”
Jeremiah 31:4
And:
“He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”
Jeremiah 31:10
And:
“I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.”
Jeremiah 31:13
And:
“There is hope for your future, declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 31:17
Jeremiah 31 is like stumbling upon a freshwater spring in the middle of Death Valley. And when I got there in my reading today, I drank deeply.
Verse 12 is especially appropriate:
“Their life shall be like a watered garden,
and they shall languish no more.”
Jeremiah 31:12
That’s what Jeremiah 31 feels like.
A watered garden.
There has been a lot written about how the book of Jeremiah came together. Jeremiah dictated some of his prophecies to his secretary Baruch. Some material appears to have been collected and arranged rather than simply placed in chronological order. If you’ve ever tried to construct a timeline of Jeremiah’s ministry just by reading straight through the book, you’ve probably discovered this for yourself.
But right here, I don’t particularly care.
Because as someone who is trying to read the Bible all the way through, I’m grateful Jeremiah 31 is where it is.
I needed this chapter.
After chapter after chapter of judgment, Jeremiah 31 reminds us that judgment isn’t where the story is going.
God still loves His people.
God will gather the people He scattered.
God will turn mourning into joy.
God will give hope for the future.
And then comes one of the greatest promises in the entire Old Testament:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
Jeremiah 31:31
Not merely a second chance at the old covenant.
A new covenant.
God says He will put His law within them and write it on their hearts. He will be their God, and they will be His people. And then comes this astonishing promise:
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 31:34
That’s where the story has been headed all along.
Jeremiah 31 doesn’t pretend the wilderness never happened. In fact, there is still heartbreak in this chapter. Rachel is weeping for her children in verse 15. The consequences of Israel’s rebellion are real. Jerusalem will still fall. Exile will still come. Jeremiah will still suffer.
The oasis doesn’t erase the wilderness.
But it reminds us that the wilderness doesn’t get the last word.
And that’s one reason I think reading through the whole Bible matters.
If all we ever do is jump from favorite verse to favorite verse, we can miss the shape of the story. We know Jeremiah 29:11. We know Jeremiah 31:3. We know Jeremiah 31:31. But when you’ve actually walked through the chapters surrounding them, those promises hit differently.
You’ve felt some of the weight of rebellion.
You’ve heard the warnings.
You’ve watched judgment coming.
And then you hear God say,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
You hear Him promise to turn mourning into joy.
You hear Him promise a new covenant.
You hear Him promise forgiveness.
And suddenly the water tastes a whole lot sweeter.
That’s the story of Jeremiah.
And really, that’s the story of the Bible.
Sin is real. Judgment is real. The wilderness is real. But God is always moving His story toward redemption.
So if you’re reading through Jeremiah and you’re getting tired, keep going.
There’s an oasis in chapter 31.
And if you’re walking through a wilderness of your own, keep going there, too.
The wilderness doesn’t get the last word.
Grace does.
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