A summons to real repentance: 'Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns' (4:3); circumcise the foreskins of your heart. Then the alarm. Blow the trumpet, flee into the fortified cities, for evil comes from the north like a lion out of his thicket, like clouds, with chariots as the whirlwind. The chapter's astonishing center is an un-creation vision: 'I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light' (4:23). Mountains trembling, no man left, the birds fled. Yet mercy holds the line: 'yet will I not make a full end.'

Drawn from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary, John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and John Calvin, Commentaries.

Context

Prophecy · Jeremiah — Jeremiah overview

A. 1–9 Break Up Your Fallow Ground; Circumcise Your Hearts
B. 10–18 A Hot Wind from the Bare Heights of the Wilderness
C. 19–31 My Anguish, My Anguish! The Earth Waste and Void Again

Top cross-references8 chapters ▾

Jeremiah 56 verses
- Jeremiah 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.
- Jeremiah 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.
- Jeremiah 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.
- Jeremiah 5:18“Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.
- Jeremiah 5:21“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.
- Jeremiah 5:23But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone away.
- Read Jeremiah 5 →
Isaiah 223 verses
- Isaiah 22:3All your rulers have fled together, captured without a bow. All your fugitives were captured together, having fled to a distant place.
- Isaiah 22:4Therefore I said, “Turn away from me, let me weep bitterly! Do not try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
- Isaiah 22:12On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Read Isaiah 22 →
Lamentations 13 verses
- Lamentations 1:2She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
- Lamentations 1:17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
- Lamentations 1:19I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.
- Read Lamentations 1 →
Jeremiah 92 verses
- Jeremiah 9:10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
- Jeremiah 9:24But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
- Read Jeremiah 9 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Luke 82 verses
- Luke 8:7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the seedlings.
- Luke 8:14The seeds that fell among the thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature.
- Read Luke 8 →
Jeremiah 82 verses
- Jeremiah 8:14Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the LORD our God has doomed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
- Jeremiah 8:16The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.
- Read Jeremiah 8 →
Jeremiah 62 verses
- Jeremiah 6:1“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.
- Jeremiah 6:26O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.
- Read Jeremiah 6 →
Jeremiah 12 verses
- Jeremiah 1:13Again the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “What do you see?” “I see a boiling pot,” I replied, “and it is tilting toward us from the north.”
- Jeremiah 1:16I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands.
- Read Jeremiah 1 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.