Chapter V · Location 5 of 52
Chapter 5 · Open to readFrom Jeremias · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)
What does Jeremias Chapter 5 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?
Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary
A commanded search and failed correction expose broken obligations. Fire-word and a distant nation announce loss short of utter destruction. Sea boundaries, denied justice and false prophecy close with a question.
Chapter breakdown
Jeremias 5 commands a search in Jerusalem's streets and broad places for a man executing judgment and seeking faith, promising mercy. It does not separately narrate a completed exhaustive search. False oaths and refusal of correction harden faces beyond rock. The speaker considers poor people possibly ignorant, then goes to great men who have broken yoke and bonds more; their education is not specified. Lion, evening wolf and watching leopard accompany multiplied rebellion.
Children forsake God, swear by nongods and commit adultery after being fed, compared with amorous horses. A command tears down walls and removes branches without utter destruction. Israel and Juda deny the Lord and sword and famine; prophets speak wind without God's word. Words in the addressed mouth become fire and people wood. A strong ancient nation of unknown language comes from afar, with sepulchre-like quiver and valiant men. Corn, bread, sons, daughters, flocks, herds, vineyards, figs and trusted cities are devoured, but not utter destruction. Serving strangers in another land answers service to a strange god at home.
Unseeing eyes and unhearing ears are challenged by the sea's sand boundary and tossing waves. Hard, provoking hearts fail to fear the giver of early and latter rain and harvest; sins withhold good things. Wicked fowlers trap men; houses full of deceit resemble nets full of birds and enrich their owners. Gross, fat transgressors deny the causes of widow, fatherless and poor. Questions about visitation end in false prophecy, priests clapping hands, a people loving these things and an unresolved question about the end. Priests ruling for profit and universal rules of unavoidable societal doom are not substituted.
The story inside
Opening: A commanded search and failed correction expose broken obligations. Development: Fire-word and a distant nation announce loss short of utter destruction. Conclusion: Sea boundaries, denied justice and false prophecy close with a question.
Lessons worth keeping
- 1A commanded search and failed correction expose broken obligations.
- 2Fire-word and a distant nation announce loss short of utter destruction.
- 3Sea boundaries, denied justice and false prophecy close with a question.
Test your recall
Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?
Source edition and notes
Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.
Lines 84458–84460
5:1. Go about through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and consider, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man that executeth judgment, and seeketh faith: and I will be merciful unto it.
Lines 84535–84539
5:22. Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it.
