13 But, “Ah, Lord [c]God!” I said, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword nor will you have famine, but I will give you [d]lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own [e]minds. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, although it was not I who sent them—yet they keep saying, ‘There will be no sword or famine in this land’—by sword and famine those prophets shall [f]meet their end! 16 The people also to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and there will be no one to bury them—neither them, nor their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters—for I will pour out their own wickedness on them.
17 “You will say this word to them,
‘Let my eyes flow down with tears night and day,
And let them not cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a mighty blow,
With a sorely infected wound.
18 ‘If I go out to the country,
Behold, those [g]slain with the sword!
Or if I enter the city,
Behold, diseases of famine!
For both prophet and priest
Have [h]gone roving about in the land that they do not know.’”19 Have You completely rejected Judah?
Or have [i]You loathed Zion?
Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing?
We waited for peace, but nothing good came;
And for a time of healing, but behold, terror!
20 We know our wickedness, O Lord,
The iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.
21 Do not despise us, for Your own name’s sake;
Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory;
Remember and do not annul Your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the [j]idols of the nations who give rain?
Or can the heavens grant showers?
Is it not You, O Lord our God?
Therefore we [k]hope in You,
For You are the one who has done all these things.
The end of this chapter is almost shocking, after all that came before. In the first verses, Jeremiah laments the false prophets. God assures him that they will meet the very doom they claimed would never happen, and the people with them. Then, Jeremiah asks God, “Have You completely rejected Judah?” To the end, Jeremiah puts his hope in God, even though judgment is imminent–and he knows it because God has told him repeatedly.
The key for Jeremiah is found earlier in v. 22, as he considers all the other idols of the nations around them. They cannot even give rain, or grant showers, how much less can they rescue anyone from famine and sword? Jeremiah rightly believes that they are all in God’s hands, and He is the only one in whom any hope is found.
We can put our hope in a lot of things today, success, fame, our job, home, family, friends, government, etc. Or we can try to ignore the mess and cover it up like the false prophets did, putting our heads in the sand, or numbing our minds with fleeting remedies. But nothing is solid, except One, and that One had promised Israel that there would be a remnant.
He had promised even more than that, and would not “annul” His covenant with Israel, but fulfill it in a way no one ever imagined. God made Jesus the “chief cornerstone” and upon that unshakeable foundation we should build our lives and put our hope. No one else can give rain, and certainly no one else can rescue our very souls from the grip of sin. God alone is our hope, when everything else is “shifting sand”, and He will sustain us and not forsake us.