Jerusalem is under siege; all the messages God caused Jeremiah to prophecy about the city are now starting to happen. The prophet is surprised by being told to buy his uncle’s field, “for the right of redemption by purchase is yours” (32:7). He does so and a “deed of purchase” is signed. He is told to “put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the LORD of hosts … Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (verses 14,15).

Jeremiah is a man of faith, he seeks to understand; we conceive of him meditating as he writes, “I prayed to the LORD saying, “Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who has made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands … O great and mighty God … great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds” (verses 17-19). We note and ponder the point God is making. He is looking to see what fruit His people produce! What fruit do our ways produce?

What does God see in Jeremiah’s day? The Lord says, “And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction” (verse 33). Today we can say, very few diligently read God’s word to receive instruction – and the world is full of ‘bad fruit’ as a result.

The Bible was greatly appreciated when it was first available for everyone to read – but there is little appreciation today! Our world faces God’s anger and His acts of judgement, just as Jerusalem faced it in the days of Jeremiah. Let us read and listen, and along with the few who listened in the prophet’s days, God says, “I will rejoice in doing them good” (verse 41). What a wonder the divine rejoicing will be! May we be there to share in it and know ‘the joy that knows no ending’.”