# Jeremiah 05 📖: Not One Is Righteous [[📚 Explore the Bible Books]] [[-Jeremiah Overview]] | [[Jeremiah 04]] | [[Jeremiah 06]] > [!info] Table of Contents > [[#📜 Scripture Text (NET)]] > [[#📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary]] > [[#🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights]] > [[#🧠 Chapter Summary]] > [[#✝️ Christ in This Chapter]] > [[#🔎 Key Principles / 🛟 Life Application]] > [[#💬 Discussion Questions]] > [[#✍️ Key Verses to Remember]] > [[#🔗 Related Passages/Cross Reference]] > [[#🙏 Devotional Reflection]] > [[#📂 Internal Notes]] ## 📜 Scripture Text (NET) (The NET Bible: New English Translation. Biblical Studies Press, 2005) ### Judah is Justly Deserving of Coming Judgment [[#Verse 01.]] The Lord said, “Go up and down through the streets of Jerusalem. Look around and see for yourselves. Search through its public squares. See if any of you can find a single person who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. If you can, then I will not punish this city. [[#Verse 02.]] These people make promises in the name of the Lord. But the fact is, what they swear to is really a lie.” [[#Verse 03.]] Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways. [[#Verse 04.]] I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. They do not know what their God requires of them. [[#Verse 05.]] I will go to the leaders and speak with them. Surely they know what the Lord demands. Surely they know what their God requires of them.” Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority and refuse to submit to him. [[#Verse 06.]] So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them. Like a wolf from the rift valley they will destroy them. Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their cities and totally destroy anyone who ventures out. For they have rebelled so much and done so many unfaithful things. [[#Verse 07.]] The Lord asked, “How can I leave you unpunished, Jerusalem? Your people have rejected me and have worshiped gods that are not gods at all. Even though I supplied all their needs, they were like an unfaithful wife to me. They went flocking to the houses of prostitutes. [[#Verse 08.]] They are like lusty, well-fed stallions. Each of them lusts after his neighbor’s wife. [[#Verse 09.]] I will surely punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord. “I will surely bring retribution on such a nation as this!” [[#Verse 10.]] The Lord commanded the enemy, “March through the vineyards of Israel and Judah and ruin them. But do not destroy them completely. Strip off their branches for these people do not belong to the Lord. [[#Verse 11.]] For the nations of Israel and Judah have been very unfaithful to me,” says the Lord. [[#Verse 12.]] “These people have denied what the Lord says. They have said, ‘That is not so! No harm will come to us. We will not experience war and famine. [[#Verse 13.]] The prophets will prove to be full of wind. The Lord has not spoken through them. So, let what they say happen to them.’” [[#Verse 14.]] Because of that, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies said to me: “Because these people have spoken like this, I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire. And I will make this people like wood, which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” [[#Verse 15.]] The Lord says, “Listen, nation of Israel! I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you. It will be a nation that was founded long ago and has lasted for a long time. It will be a nation whose language you will not know. Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand. [[#Verse 16.]] All its soldiers are strong and mighty. Their arrows will send you to your grave. [[#Verse 17.]] They will eat up your crops and your food. They will kill off your sons and your daughters. They will eat up your sheep and your cattle. They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. Their weapons will batter down the fortified cities you trust in. [[#Verse 18.]] “Yet even then I will not completely destroy you,” says the Lord.  [[#Verse 19.]] “So then, Jeremiah, when your people ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So you must serve foreigners in a land that does not belong to you.’ [[#Verse 20.]] “Proclaim this message among the descendants of Jacob. Make it known throughout Judah. [[#Verse 21.]] Tell them: ‘Hear this, you foolish people who have no understanding, who have eyes but do not discern, who have ears but do not perceive: [[#Verse 22.]] ‘You should fear me!’ says the Lord. ‘You should tremble in awe before me! I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.’ [[#Verse 23.]] But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone their own way. [[#Verse 24.]] They do not say to themselves, ‘Let us revere the Lord our God. It is he who gives us the autumn rains and the spring rains at the proper time. It is he who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.” [[#Verse 25.]] Your misdeeds have stopped these things from coming. Your sins have deprived you of my bounty.’ [[#Verse 26.]] Indeed, there are wicked scoundrels among my people. They lie in wait like bird catchers hiding in ambush. They set deadly traps to catch people. [[#Verse 27.]] Like a cage filled with the birds that have been caught, their houses are filled with the gains of their fraud and deceit. That is how they have gotten so rich and powerful. [[#Verse 28.]] That is how they have grown fat and sleek. There is no limit to the evil things they do. They do not plead the cause of the fatherless in such a way as to win it. They do not defend the rights of the poor. [[#Verse 29.]] I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord. “I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this! [[#Verse 30.]] Something horrible and shocking is going on in the land of Judah: [[#Verse 31.]] The prophets prophesy lies. The priests exercise power by their own authority. And my people love to have it this way. But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ## 📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary ###### Overall. ###### Verse 01. ###### Verse 02. ###### Verse 03. ###### Verse 04. ###### Verse 05. ###### Verse 06. ###### Verse 07. ###### Verse 08. ###### Verse 09. ###### Verse 10. ###### Verse 11. ###### Verse 12. ###### Verse 13. ###### Verse 14. ###### Verse 15. ###### Verse 16. ###### Verse 17. ###### Verse 18. ###### Verse 19. ###### Verse 20. ###### Verse 21. ###### Verse 22. ###### Verse 23. ###### Verse 24. ###### Verse 25. ###### Verse 26. ###### Verse 27. ###### Verse 28. ###### Verse 29. ###### Verse 30. ###### Verse 31. ## 🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights 1. The search for one righteous person (5:1) recalls Abraham asking God to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people (Genesis 18:32). 2. Jeremiah first assumes only the poor are ignorant, then finds that the leaders have also broken off the yoke (5:4-5). 3. The lion, wolf, and leopard (5:6) are three predators that lived in the land of Israel in biblical times. 4. God's people are compared to well-fed stallions neighing after their neighbors' wives (5:8). 5. The "nation from far away" whose language they do not understand (5:15) echoes the covenant warning in Deuteronomy 28:49. 6. Even in judgment God says, "I will not completely destroy you" (5:10, 18). 7. God sends the autumn and spring rains and keeps the weeks of harvest (5:24). Israel's farming depended on rains in the fall to plant and in the spring to ripen crops. 8. The rich are compared to a cage full of birds (5:27): their houses are full of what they have taken by deceit. 9. The people say of God, "He will do nothing" (5:12), denying that He would ever judge them. 10. God asks three times why He should not punish such a nation (5:9, 29, and in similar words in 9:9). ## 🧠 Chapter Summary > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## ✝️ Christ in This Chapter Christ is the one righteous Man God searched for in Jerusalem (5:1). Where no one was found, Jesus the righteous suffered for the unrighteous to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). ## 🔎 Key Principles / 🛟 Life Application > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## 💬 Discussion Questions 1. God tells Jeremiah to search Jerusalem for one person who does justice and seeks truth (5:1). What does that show about the condition of the city and the mercy of God? 2. God set the sand as a boundary for the sea, yet His people would not stay within His boundaries (5:22-23). Where do you resist God's boundaries? 3. The prophets lied, the priests ruled by their own authority, and the people loved it (5:31). Why do people often prefer comfortable lies over hard truth? ## ✍️ Key Verses to Remember - 📖 verse 1: Search Jerusalem for one person who does justice and seeks truth, and God will forgive the city. - 📖 verse 22: God placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a limit it cannot cross. - 📖 verse 31: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and My people love it this way. ## 🔗 Related Passages/Cross Reference - 🔗 [[Genesis 18#Verse 32.|Genesis 18:32]] - God would spare the city for ten righteous people. - 🔗 [[Romans 03#Verse 10.|Romans 3:10-12]] - There is no one righteous, not even one. - 🔗 [[1 Peter 03#Verse 18.|1 Peter 3:18]] - The righteous suffered for the unrighteous. - 🔗 [[Job 38#Verse 08.|Job 38:8-11]] - God set the limits of the sea. - 🔗 [[2 Timothy 04#Verse 03.|2 Timothy 4:3-4]] - People will gather teachers who say what they want to hear. ## 🙏 Devotional Reflection 📝 SOAP: [[Jeremiah 05 - SOAP|We Get What We Tolerate]] ## 📂 Internal Notes