Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

Today we started hanging out with the major prophet Jeremiah.

He comes from a long line of priests but gets a call from God to be a prophet.

So he hires a scribe named Baruch to write down his prophecies which span roughly 40 years

and five kings of Judah.

In addition to Jeremiah's prophecies, Baruch writes down some of the stories from Jeremiah's

life as well and it's not an easy one.

Jeremiah is referred to as the weeping prophet because he carries some deep grief over

the state of the people of Judah.

It's easy to imagine prophets as these self-righteous people who just go around telling everybody

else what they're doing wrong.

But more often what we actually see is that God has a way of putting them in tough circumstances

so they can feel the pain of the people.

It helps them stay humble and it also has a way of increasing the potency of their message.

When God first calls Jeremiah, he refuses to prophesy but then God rebukes him, confirms

him and encourages him with the reminder, I am with you.

Then God gives him three assignments to pluck up and break down, to destroy an overthrow

and to build and plant.

Just reading that doesn't it remind you of all the other prophetic books we've read so

far, there will be destruction but there will be restoration.

God gives Jeremiah two visions then tells him what he's about to do.

He's going to send a conqueror from the north and we already know this refers to Babylon

...