"Let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the sage. Do give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to what my opponents are saying!
Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, so as to turn away your wrath from them. Therefore, give their children over to famine, and deliver them up to the sword. Let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men be smitten to death. May an outcry be heard from their houses when you suddenly bring raiders upon them. They have dug a pit to capture me and hidden snares for my feet. You, O Lord, know all their deadly designs against me. Do not forgive their iniquity or blot out their sin from your sight. May they be overthrown before you. Deal with them in the time of anger.
Jeremiah feels hemmed in by his enemies when he proclaims the word of the Lord. It causes him great anguish. God called him to intercede for the people, and he has done so; but, although he has sought only their good, they plot against him. These words have been interpreted as an announcement of how the Jewish authorities schemed against Jesus, seeking to arrest him.
Jeremiah's resistance for his preaching is seen by St. Jerome as a prefiguring of the difficulties Jesus would encounter fom the people who spread calamilities and slander to frustrate the work of holy men.
Daily Prayer: Father, the world is still under the power of the prince of the air. He is constantly seeking to destroy those who belong to you and who share the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the midst of our difficulties, remember us and protect us so that the gospel can go out to a perishing world. In Jesus name and for his sake I pray Amen.
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