- 1If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.
- 2And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.
- 3 For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
- 4Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- 5Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.
- 6Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.
- 7The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.
- 8For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.
- 9And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the LORD, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.
- 10Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.
- 11At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,
- 12Even a full wind from those places shall come unto me: now also will I give sentence against them.
- 13Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.
- 14O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?
- 15For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.
- 16Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.
- 17As keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she hath been rebellious against me, saith the LORD.
- 18Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart.
- 19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- 20Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.
- 21How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
- 22For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
- 23I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
- 24I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
- 25I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
- 26I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
- 27For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
- 28For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.
- 29The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.
- 30And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.
- 31For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.
KING JAMES VERSION
JEREMIAH 4
Read the chapter, follow a linked verse, and continue into related Watchman 33 teaching.
CHAPTER VISUAL
Jeremiah 4 — The Lion from the North.
About this illustration
The composition centers the lion from the north as the chapter’s defining visual, using a unified, historically grounded scene while avoiding written text and any bodily depiction of God.
Scripture basis: Jeremiah 4:1–31King James Version · Standardized 1769 text with Strong’s numbering · Public domain outside the United Kingdom
EXPLORE THE MESSAGE
Related Watchman 33 Resources
Archaeological Evidence
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCEManuscript
Late second or early third century AD
Chester Beatty Biblical Papyrus VIII: Greek Jeremiah
Two damaged leaves of Rahlfs 966 preserve Jeremiah 4:30–5:1, 5:9–14, and 5:23–24 in an early Greek codex whose small extent requires unusually careful claims.
Jeremiah 4:30–31 · Jeremiah 5:1 · Jeremiah 5:9–14
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCEManuscript
Early Herodian period, late first century BC
4QJeremiahᶜ (4Q72): Jeremiah 4–33
A distinct Cave 4 Jeremiah scroll preserves extensive fragments from chapters 4–33 and supplies another ancient witness to the book’s longer textual form.
Jeremiah 4:1–31 · Jeremiah 31:31–40 · Jeremiah 33:1–26
Sermons
The World You Live In: The Brainwashed (Part 4)
In The Brainwashed, Part 4 of The World You Live In, Pastor Dean Odle warns that religious familiarity and information are not the same as knowing God. He compares modern church confidence with Corinthian immaturity, repeats Jesus' warnings in Matthew 24 about end-time deception, and uses Hosea 4 to argue that people are destroyed for lack of knowledge even while believing themselves informed.
Apostasy and DeceptionChurch and MinistryDoctrine and DiscernmentSpiritual Warfare
View sermon The World You Live In (Part 2)
In Part 2 of The World You Live In, Pastor Dean Odle continues his argument that Christians should test inherited descriptions of creation against Scripture rather than accept institutional consensus as final authority. Beginning with worship and prayer, he develops a reconstruction or gap reading of Genesis 1:1-2, connects the earth becoming "without form, and void" with prophetic language in Jeremiah and Isaiah, and treats Satan's fall as part of the background to the ruined condition he sees before the six days of ordering.
Doctrine and DiscernmentBiblical CreationApostasy and DeceptionSpiritual Warfare
View sermon The World You Live In
In the opening message of “The World You Live In,” Pastor Dean Odle argues that understanding the present world requires recovering what he calls the pre-Adamic angelic world behind it. He presents a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, reading Isaiah 45:18 and Jeremiah 4:23-26 to mean that God originally formed the earth inhabited, but Satan's rebellion brought darkness, desolation, ruined cities, and divine judgment before Adam. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are then read as complementary accounts of Lucifer's fall, former rule, corrupted wisdom, and defiled sanctuaries.
Spiritual WarfareBiblical CreationApostasy and DeceptionBible Prophecy
View sermon Showing 1–3 of 6 sermons