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

Jeremiah continues his plea to Judah today, and he opens with a reminder of what many, but not all, of their idols really are.

It's a tree God made, cut down by a human

god made, covered in gold God made. It can't hear or speak or move. That block of wood by itself

can't do good or evil. It's completely impotent, unless, and this is something the text

doesn't quite dig into here, unless an evil

spirit attaches itself to the object. And this is actually what the people are hoping for,

although they aren't specifically seeking evil spirits, just forces of power. In order to summon

these forces of power, they do incantations, cut themselves, and perform

magic and rituals to try to get what they believe is a god to indwell the thing they've just made.

They even make special outfits for the statues and take them on trips.

When you think about those statues and then you consider Yahweh, there is no comparison.

The people are worshipping these idols because they think it will give them safety and power and happiness.

Most of us probably don't have a false god set up in our homes, but we certainly do look to other things besides Yahweh for those same purposes.

Safety and power and happiness.

There's nothing wrong with those things, but when they take precedence in our hearts and thoughts,

they take our eyes off Yahweh. When our good desires become ultimate, when they become expectations and requirements, we are on the same path as the people of Judah

who sought out other gods to access their desires. In verses 19 through 21, Jeremiah speaks on behalf of

Jerusalem. And one of the things that the personified Jerusalem says is that the people who are

supposed to be leading Judah aren't actually

seeking God. And as a result, the people of Judah are scattered. If no one is following a person,

they aren't really a leader, not even a bad one. And good leaders know that they have to first

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