The prophet Jeremiah - יִרְמְיָהוּ - wrote the Books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, the latter his reflection on the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah is one of four Major Prophets in Hebrew Scripture, along with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The prophet Jeremiah was born in the seventh century BC and lived during a period of crisis for the Kingdom of Judah. His ministry spanned the time before and after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. He was called to prophecy at a young age and supported the reform of the pious King Josiah of Judah, who reigned from 640 to 609 BC. However idolatry returned to Judah following his reign. Jeremiah recognized the impending disaster was attributed to the people's infidelity to God. His pleas for a return to the way of the Lord fell on deaf ears during the subsequent reigns of the Kings of Judah. Judah and Jerusalem fell during the reign of King Zedekiah, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 587/586 BC, and thousands of citizens were deported during the Babylonian Exile. Jeremiah himself suffered persecution with imprisonment, disgrace, and eventual exile to Egypt. Written in poetry and prose, the Book of Jeremiah is divided into a Prologue, the Calling and Mission of Jeremiah (1-1:19); Part I, Oracles concerning Israel and Judah (2:1-25:38); Part II, the Life of Jeremiah (26:1-45:5); Part III, Oracles concerning the Nations (46:1-51:64); and an Epilogue, which describes the Fall of Jerusalem (52:1-38), also recounted in Second Kings 25. The prophet Jeremiah is recorded four times in Second Chronicles 35-36, and is listed in the Book of Ezra 1:1. Jeremiah is probably most noted for his prophecy on the 70 years of the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish people (Jeremiah 25:11, Daniel 9:2). Important passages include the Call of Jeremiah (Prologue), the Lord as the source of living waters (2:13), on the Ark of the Covenant (3:16), or can a Leopard change his spots (13:23); True Wisdom to Trust in the Lord (17:7-8), the Parable of the Potter's Vessel (18:1-12), Jeremiah's Lament (20:7-18), the Messianic Reign (23:5-8), and the Prophecy on Seventy Years of the Babylonian Exile (25:11). Jeremiah refers to the Prophet Micah in 26:18. Chapters 30-33 are one of the key passages of the Old Testament and have been called the Book of Consolation, for they speak of the Restoration and the New Covenant (31:31-34). Chapter 36 has Jeremiah dictating to his scribe Baruch who recorded the words on a scroll to have it read in the Temple of the Lord. Chapters 37-40:6 record the Sufferings of Jeremiah. He also wrote the Letter of Jeremiah, found in the Greek Septuagint but not the Masoretic Text. However, the Letter of Jeremiah was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls written in Hebrew and has received renewed attention. The Book of Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe, is found in the Greek Septuagint but not the Masoretic Hebrew Text. Thus it was not included in Hebrew Scripture and relegated to the Apocrypha in the King James Bible. St. Augustine at the Third Council of Carthage in 397 AD and the Council of Trent during the Catholic Reformation in 1546 affirmed the Book of Baruch as inspired and part of the Canon of the Old Testament for Catholics and Orthodox. The Letter of Jeremiah serves as Chapter Six of Baruch in the Latin Vulgate.
Jeremiah's announcement of a New Covenant is borne out in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. Jesus specifically refers to the New Covenant in the Institution of the Eucharist (Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, First Corinthians 11:25). Jesus often uses the same images and similes as Jeremiah, such as the fount of living water (Jeremiah 2:13 and John 4:10-15) and the barren fig tree (Jeremiah 8:13 and Matthew 21:18). Matthew 2:17 is a direct quotation of Jeremiah 31:15. Paul in First Corinthians 1:31 and Second Corinthians 10:17 refers to Jeremiah 9:24, and Hebrews 8:8-12 quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34. The prophet Jeremiah is listed in the Gospel of Matthew 2:17, 16:14 and 27:9. The following Scripture is from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of the Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today.
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