Prophet · OT
Jeremiah
The 'weeping prophet' who watched Jerusalem fall to Babylon and preached a costly faithfulness to a doomed nation.
Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, was called to prophesy in Judah's last forty years before Babylon's conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Set apart 'before I formed you in the womb' (Jeremiah 1:5), he ministered through the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah — a span dominated by political collapse, false prophets, and a people deaf to repentance.
He wore a yoke, smashed a potter's jar, bought a field at the moment of national ruin, and was beaten, imprisoned, and lowered into a muddy cistern for the unwelcome word he carried. After Jerusalem's destruction he was taken against his will to Egypt, where tradition says he died.
Jeremiah also delivered some of scripture's most luminous promises: a new covenant written on the heart (31:31-34), plans of welfare and not of evil (29:11), and the unfailing mercies that are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23, traditionally his).
Key moments
Called from the womb
Set apart as prophet to the nations before birth (Jeremiah 1:5).
The potter's house
Watches a potter rework spoiled clay — an image of God's sovereign reshaping (Jeremiah 18).
Bought a field under siege
Pays for ancestral land as a sign of future restoration (Jeremiah 32).
The new covenant promise
Foretells a law written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
Key verses
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations."
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"The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? I, Jehovah, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."
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"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end."
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"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
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"It is of Jehovah’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness."
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Frequently asked
Why is Jeremiah called the weeping prophet?
Jeremiah grieves openly throughout his book (8:21; 9:1; 13:17) and tradition attributes Lamentations — a five-poem dirge over fallen Jerusalem — to him.
What is the new covenant Jeremiah promised?
In Jeremiah 31:31-34 God promises a covenant in which the law is written on the heart, all his people know him directly, and sins are remembered no more. The New Testament identifies this fulfillment in Christ (Hebrews 8:8-12).
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