1. God comes to Jeremiah and appoints him as His mouthpiece. God tells Jeremiah that Jerusalem will be invaded from the north because the people have forsaken Him and are worshipping gods ‘their hands have made’. God threatens Jeremiah to do as He commands.

2-4. God asks why the people have strayed so far from Him. He reminds them that He brought them out ofEgypt, and says He will bring charges against their children’s children. Jeremiah makes an analogy between Israel and a prostitute as the people have been unfaithful to God. Jeremiah 4:3 says ‘Circumcise yourself to God, circumcise your hearts.’ How are we to interpret this? Our hearts are as evil as foreskins? Bizarre.

5-7. Jeremiah says that not one person in Jerusalem is worthy of being saved; they are all detestable and shameless. The crimes mentioned are worshipping other gods, adultery, shedding innocent blood, theft, and dealing unjustly. Because of this, God will pour out his anger, which will burn all, and the surrounding area will be called the ‘Valley of Slaughter'. Jeremiah calls the shedding of innocent blood ‘detestable’ but loves the God that lusts for a ‘Valley of Slaughter’.

8-9. Jeremiah says that God will take away their grapes and figs, He will poison their water, He will bring invading armies, and poisonous snakes to bite them. Jeremiah weeps for his people, and despairs that they do not listen to him, then promises that God ‘will pursue them with the sword, until He has slain them’. God declares: ‘The carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field.’ In the next breath God says ‘I am the Lord God, who exercises kindness’. The God of Jeremiah’s imagination is as vile and hypocritical as the God of Moses and Joshua.

10-12. Jeremiah admonishes the worship of idols that ‘craftsmen and goldsmiths have made’. God reveals to Jeremiah that the people of his hometown, Anathoth, are planning to kill him. God responds (through Jeremiah) that He will punish them, ‘the young men will die by the sword, and the children by famine’. Jeremiah asks God why the wicked prosper. God’s reply to Jeremiah's question makes no sense.

13-15. God says he will bring destruction with ‘no pity, mercy, or compassion’. God says ‘I will stretch out my hand and destroy my people. … I will bereave you of children. … their will be more widows than sand in the seas. … I will bring destruction against mothers and young men, and terror upon the city’. Jeremiah consists of the writings of a disturbed and hateful man, imagining his God fulfilling his violent fantasies.

16-22. Jeremiah condemns the worshippers of Baal for sacrificing children. His answer, however, is for his God to ‘cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters’ during the famine that will come with the impending siege. A priest has Jeremiah put in stocks for his prophesying. When released the next day, Jeremiah continues, with added prophesy of the priest’s death in exile. Jeremiah says that all the people who remain in besieged Jerusalem will be struck by plague, sword, and famine. Only those who surrender will live. Jeremiah condemns the kings of Israel for not defending the poor and needy.

23. Jeremiah prophesizes a King will be born from David’s line who will reign wisely. This is seen by many Christians as a prophesy of the coming of Jesus, however, it is nothing more than wishful thinking. The prophesy lacks any detail; there is no name or timeframe. Jesus cannot be a descendant of David if he is the product of virgin birth. The genealogies listed in the books of Matthew and Luke purporting to link Jesus with David are unsupported and contradictory.

23 cont. Jeremiah refers to lying prophets ‘who prophesy the delusions of their own minds’. The irony.

24-29. Jeremiah says that the Jews will be exiled in Babylon for seventy years, at which time God will punish the Babylonians. Another prophet, Hananiah, prophesizes that Jerusalem is safe from the Babylonians. Jeremiah accuses Hananiah of being a false prophet and prophesizes his death. Hananiah dies seven months later, cause unstated.

30-36. Jeremiah prophesizes the restoration of Israel from exile and a utopian future with God. Jeremiah condemns the people of Jerusalem for not obeying God’s rules for keeping slaves. God commands Jeremiah to take a scroll and write down everything God has told him. When this is read to King Jehoiakim, the king throws it in the fire. Jeremiah dictates a new scroll prophesizing disaster for the king.

37-38. Jeremiah is imprisoned on the charge of attempting to desert to the Babylonians. King Zedekiah changes this sentence to house arrest. Jeremiah is lowered into a cistern for continuing his prophesy of doom, but is subsequently brought out before he starves.

39-45. The Babylonians attack and lay siege to Jerusalem, and the city is overthrown. Zedekiah, his sons, and officials flee at night but are captured. They are taken to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who kills Zedekiah’s sons and officials, puts out Zedekiah’s eyes, binds him in shackles, and takes him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar commands his guards to not harm Jeremiah, instructing them instead to do as Jeremiah asks. The surviving remnant of Jews ask Jeremiah for help. Jeremiah prophesizes that if they stay they will prosper but if they flee to Egypt they will die. The people disregard Jeremiah’s advice and travel and settle in Egypt. Jeremiah prophesizes their doom, as well as doom for the women who worship the ‘Queen of Heaven’, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility.

46-51. These chapters retell Jeremiah’s prophesies of death and destruction in poetic form. Hysterical, fanatical poetry, designed to bring fear to superstitious people.

52. The Babylonians burn and plunder Jerusalem.

In an age of constant war, exile, and short life-spans, Jeremiah’s prophesies of war, exile, and death come true. Astonishing. The man must truly be the mouthpiece of God. Jeremiah is obsessed with death and religious revenge. He comes across as a delusional man, whose constant prophesies were not only entirely ineffective, they probably weakened the resolve of the Jews and aided the Babylonians, who incidentally treat him very well when they take the city. Jeremiah condemns prophets ‘who prophesy the delusions of their own minds’, without the self-awareness that he was one of them. God’s message in Jeremiah is essentially ‘I love you and you are mine, but because you have been unfaithful to me I will bring you destruction and death’. Anyone with this attitude in modern times would be labeled as criminally insane.