Lesson 137

Jeremiah 1–6

Introduction

During the reign of King Josiah, God called Jeremiah, explaining that he was foreordained to be a prophet to the nations of the world and to preach repentance to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The people had forsaken the Lord and were worshipping other gods. Jeremiah prophesied that the people of Judah would suffer at the hands of an opposing nation as a punishment for their sins.

Suggestions for Teaching

Doctrinal Mastery Review—Exodus 20:3–17 (5 minutes)

Before class, write on the board the following statement of doctrine, which is found in Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2018), 9.4: The Ten Commandments are a vital part of the gospel and are eternal principles that are necessary for our exaltation.

Beneath this statement write Exodus 20:3–17. Then write out all Ten Commandments on the board in a random order.

Ask students to turn to Exodus 20:3–17. Invite a student to come to the board and act as a scribe. Ask the class to work together to label each of the commandments with its correct number. (For example, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” should be labeled “1.”) After the class has successfully completed the activity, invite students to repeat aloud in unison the key statement of doctrine written on the board and the scripture reference. Then erase the board.

Jeremiah 1

God calls Jeremiah as a prophet to preach repentance to the Southern Kingdom of Judah

Write the following question on the board: What are some things you hope to accomplish during your life? Invite students to write their responses to this question in their study journals.

After sufficient time, invite several students to report to the class what they wrote. Ask students to ponder whether there are specific tasks they are meant to accomplish in their lives. Explain that God revealed to a prophet named Jeremiah truths about his mission in mortality. Invite students to look for truths in Jeremiah 1 that can help them understand their purposes in mortality.

Summarize Jeremiah 1:1–3 by explaining that in the 13th year of the reign of King Josiah, who ruled over the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Jeremiah received a revelation from the Lord. Invite a student to read Jeremiah 1:4–5 aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for what Jeremiah learned about his relationship with God.

Jeremiah 1:4–5 is a doctrinal mastery passage. Invite students to consider marking doctrinal mastery passages in a distinctive way so they can locate them easily.

• What did Jeremiah learn about himself and his relationship with God?

• What can we learn about ourselves from the fact that God knew Jeremiah before he was born? (Students may use different words, but be sure it is clear that before we were born, our Heavenly Father knew us and we existed as His spirit children.)

• According to verse 5, when did the Lord appoint Jeremiah to be a prophet?

Explain that Jeremiah’s experience of being ordained before he was born is known as foreordination. To help students better understand what foreordination means, share the following statement:

“The doctrine of foreordination applies to all members of the Church, not just to the Savior and His prophets. Before the creation of the earth, faithful women were given certain responsibilities and faithful men were foreordained to certain priesthood duties. Although you do not remember that time, you surely agreed to fulfill significant tasks in the service of your Father. As you prove yourself worthy, you will be given opportunities to fulfill the assignments you then received” (True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference [2004], 70).

Write the following incomplete statement on the board: Before we were born, …

• How would you complete this statement using what you have learned about foreordination? (Using students’ words, complete the statement on the board so that it conveys the following truth: Before we were born, we were given specific responsibilities and duties to perform during mortality.)

• What are some of the responsibilities and duties that the Lord may have ordained His children to do in this life?

• In what ways can we learn the specific duties or responsibilities we are to perform during mortality?

In response to the previous question, students may have mentioned receiving patriarchal blessings. You may want to invite students who have received patriarchal blessings to describe what they felt as they learned about some of their foreordained responsibilities and duties. (Students should not share specific details from their patriarchal blessings in a public situation like a seminary classroom; however, they may share their feelings about their blessings.)

Encourage students who have not yet received their patriarchal blessings to ponder what they should do to prepare to receive theirs.

Invite a student to read Jeremiah 1:6 aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for how Jeremiah responded when he learned God had foreordained him to be a prophet.

• How did Jeremiah respond?

Invite a few students to take turns reading aloud from Jeremiah 1:7–10. Ask the class to follow along, looking for promises the Lord gave to Jeremiah that might have comforted him.

• Which specific promises might have comforted Jeremiah? How might these promises have helped him?

• According to verse 9, how did the Lord help Jeremiah overcome his concerns about speaking?

• What can we learn from this experience about what the Lord will do for those He calls to His work? (Help students identify the following truth: When God calls us to do His work, He will help us do what He has asked.)

• As a baptized, covenant-keeping member of the Church, what are some examples of the work the Lord has called us to do? When has the Lord helped you do the work He has called you to do?

Summarize Jeremiah 1:11–16 by explaining that the Lord revealed to Jeremiah that because of the Jews’ wickedness, a nation would come from the north and conquer them.

Ask students to imagine they are in the prophet Jeremiah’s position. Invite them to read Jeremiah 1:17–19 silently, looking for additional ways the Lord promised to help Jeremiah. Ask students to discuss with a partner what they found.

Jeremiah 2–3

The Lord declares the wickedness of Judah and Israel

Invite students to look at the chart “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah at a Glance” at the end of lesson 106 and find “Jeremiah.”

• Who else was preaching around the same time as Jeremiah?

Explain that Jeremiah, Lehi, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk were some of the prophets commanded to tell the Jews that they must repent of their wickedness or be conquered by another nation (see also 1 Nephi 1:4, 18). Summarize Jeremiah 2:1–12 by explaining that the Lord declared through Jeremiah that His people had loved Him when He had delivered them out of Egypt and given them a promised land. Now, however, the people had gone astray by worshipping idols and had “defiled [the] land” (verse 7).

Explain that the Lord then taught about the people’s spiritual condition using the image of a water container. Bring to class two containers that can store water, and ensure that one has a very large hole in the bottom. Hold up these two containers.

• If you were going to store water, which of these would be more useful? Why?

Explain that the Lord referred to “cisterns,” or large containers that hold water, as He taught Jeremiah about the people’s weakened spiritual condition. Invite a student to read Jeremiah 2:13 aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for the “two evils” the people had committed.

• What “two evils” had the people committed?

• Whom does “the fountain of living waters” represent? (Jesus Christ.)

• In what ways is the Lord like a “fountain of living waters”?

Explain that the broken cisterns represented the false gods the Israelites had chosen to worship instead of the Lord.

• What did the Lord teach about false gods by comparing them to broken cisterns that cannot hold water? (False gods do not have the power to help us or to satisfy our needs and desires.)

• What can we learn from this analogy?

Explain that Jeremiah 2:14–3:5 records that the Lord taught that the people’s wickedness would bring them great sorrow and that the false gods they had chosen would not save or help them (see Jeremiah 2:28).

Summarize Jeremiah 3:6–11 by explaining that the Lord compared the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to two sisters. One sister (Judah) watched the other sister (Israel) refuse to listen to the prophets and ultimately reject the Lord. As a result of this rejection, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians in the century before Jeremiah was born, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had witnessed it. Invite a student to read Jeremiah 3:10 aloud. Ask the class to look for how the Lord described what Judah did after Israel’s destruction. (You may need to explain that the word feignedly means pretending or without sincerity.)

• How did Judah respond after seeing Israel suffer for not turning to the Lord?

Invite a student to read Jeremiah 3:12–13, 22 aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for what the Lord invited His people to do. (You may need to explain that the word backsliding refers to reverting to faithlessness, sinfulness, or slothfulness.)

• According to verse 12, what did the Lord invite His people to do?

• What doctrine of the gospel involves returning to the Lord from a sinful condition?

• According to verse 22, what did the Lord promise those who repent and come unto Him? (Although students may use different words, be sure it is clear that if we repent and come unto the Lord with our whole hearts, He will help us to change and not repeat sins of the past.)

• How does the Lord heal us and help us resist temptations?

To help students feel the truth and importance of this principle, testify that as we turn to the Lord with our whole hearts, He will help us to change and not repeat sins of the past. Invite students to consider sins in their lives they may need to be healed of, and encourage them to turn to the Lord.

Jeremiah 4–6

Judah will suffer at the hands of another nation for failing to repent

Summarize Jeremiah 4–6 by explaining that Jeremiah pled with the people to repent. He warned them about the consequences they would experience if they did not repent. Ask students to silently read the chapter headings for Jeremiah 5 and 6, as well as Jeremiah 5:25, looking for some of these consequences. Invite them to report what they find.

Explain that although God loves us and wants to spare us unnecessary pain, we bring pain upon ourselves when we sin. The Lord allowed the Israelites to suffer many of the consequences of their wickedness (see Jeremiah 2:17; 4:18; 7:19). However, He also promised that He would not allow the people to be completely destroyed (see Jeremiah 5:9–10, 18).

Conclude by testifying of the truths identified in today’s lesson.

Commentary and Background Information

Jeremiah 1. Jeremiah and the wickedness of the people

Jeremiah was born to a Levite family in Anathoth. His ministry began during the 13th year of the reign of King Josiah (approximately 627 BC) and lasted for more than 40 years. (See Bible Dictionary, “Jeremiah.”) This was a period of tremendous wickedness among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, during which the Lord sent many prophets to warn His people “because he had compassion on [them], … but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:15–16). Jeremiah preached alongside other prophets called to warn the people of Jerusalem, including Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Lehi (see 1 Nephi 1:4).

We can see further evidence of the wicked state of the people through Lehi’s and Nephi’s writings in the Book of Mormon. After Lehi obeyed the Lord and tried to warn the people about the destruction of Jerusalem, they “sought his life, that they might take it away” (1 Nephi 1:20; see 1 Nephi 1:18–2:2). Nephi also described their wickedness: “The Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them; for behold, they have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison” (1 Nephi 7:14). The people were degenerate and rejected the Lord’s compassion, which He manifested through the sending of prophets, and their wickedness left them to suffer the consequences of losing the Lord’s protection.

Jeremiah 1:5. “I knew thee”

The Prophet Joseph Smith (1805–44) received a revelation that can help us better understand the significance of Jeremiah 1:5. In Doctrine and Covenants 93:29 we learn that “man was also in the beginning with God” (see also D&C 93:23). Therefore, when we read Jeremiah 1:5 we know that God knew Jeremiah before he was born because, like all of us, Jeremiah lived with God before this life. We can trust that God knew us before we were born and foreordained us for earthly missions.

Jeremiah 1:18–19. “I have made thee this day a defenced city”

This promise from the Lord to His newly commissioned prophet Jeremiah illustrates that He would fortify and strengthen Jeremiah against the onslaught of opposition he would face as he commanded the people of Jerusalem to repent. The Jews did not want to hear Jeremiah’s calls to repentance and warnings of destruction. The animosity, anger, and rage heaped upon him by the Jews could be compared to a city that is under siege. Nevertheless, the Lord’s promise is sure: “They shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1:19).

Jeremiah 3:22. “I will heal your backslidings”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles confirmed that the Lord wants us to turn to Him, even when we have been disobedient to His commandments:

“Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “He Hath Filled the Hungry with Good Things,” Ensign, Nov. 1997, 66).

Jeremiah 3:12–19. The Lord is merciful to those who repent and come unto Him

In these verses a prophecy of the Lord reminds Judah that He is merciful to those who repent and turn back to Him and that He promises in the latter days that a gathering of the House of Israel will occur (see verses 12–14); that Church leaders will teach knowledge and understanding of the gospel (verse 15); that He will establish a new covenant, the gospel, upon the earth (verse 16); that Jerusalem will once again be a righteous city and the throne of the Lord (verse 17); and that the entire House of Israel, in righteousness, will worship the Lord and receive their lands of inheritance (verses 18–19). The fulfillment of these prophesies is coming to pass now, 2,500 years later.