Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

I want to start with something of which I only want to make a short mention.  Jeremiah prophesied that as long as night follows day, God will not reject the descendants of Jacob.  He may from time to time inflict disaster upon them when they fail to follow His commands, but He will always restore them again in due time.

Now to the part of this passage which speaks to me more today.  King Zedekiah sought to respond to Jeremiah’s prophesies (and likely other prophets giving similar prophesies) and restore a level of justice to Jerusalem and Judah by getting the “elites” to free their Hebrew slaves.  I suspect that there was a lot of popular support for this movement.  So, in the face of popular outcry, the “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem very publicly entered into a covenant to free their slaves, and even did so in the face of the public view.  However, as soon as the glare of public attention turned to something else, they found ways to quietly re-enslave those they had freed.  I believe that some of those who freed, and then re-enslaved, their slaves believed they were doing a good thing when they released their slaves, and justified re-enslaving them as doing what was best for “everyone”.  However, many of them did so to receive the accolades of being righteous, with no intention of changing their ways.  There are two lessons for us here.  First, such acts of “righteousness” have no lasting value.  If you are going to vow to change your ways, don’t find excuses to return to your old ways.  Second, God is not fooled when we act one way in public, but completely differently when we think no one is looking (and we should not be fooled by others who do likewise).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.