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And if you say in your heart, “Why have these things come upon me?” For the greatness of your iniquity Your skirts have been uncovered, Your heels made bare.
Jeremiah 13:22 · New King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB If you say in your heart, “Why are these things come on me?” For the greatness of your iniquity your skirts are uncovered, and your heels suffer violence.
  • KJV And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.
  • BSB And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.
  • NASB “If you say in your heart, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ Because of the magnitude of your wrongdoing Your skirts have been removed And your heels have suffered violence.
  • NLT You may ask yourself, “Why is all this happening to me?” It is because of your many sins! That is why you have been stripped and raped by invading armies.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

When Judah asks why this happened, the answer is the greatness of her sin, pictured as shameful exposure.

Overview

The disturbing imagery of stripped garments depicts the public shame of conquest and exile. Their suffering is the direct result of accumulated iniquity, not random misfortune. The verse confronts the human tendency to question calamity while ignoring the sin that caused it.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 21

  • Nah 3:5“Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.
  • Jer 16:10–11It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’
  • Jer 5:19It will happen, when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
  • Deut 7:17If you shall say in your heart, “These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?”
  • Lam 1:8Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
  • Jer 13:26Therefore will I also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame shall appear.
  • Jer 9:2–9Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
  • Hos 2:10Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.
  • Jer 2:17–19“Haven’t you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you by the way?
  • Isa 3:17therefore the Lord brings sores on the crown of the head of the women of Zion, and Yahweh will make their scalps bald.”
  • Ezek 16:37–39therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated; I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.
  • Isa 47:2–3Take the millstones, and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers.
  • Hos 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
  • Deut 18:21You may say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?”
  • Isa 47:8“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.’
  • Zeph 1:12It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, “Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil.”
  • Hos 12:8Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”
  • Ezek 23:27–29Thus I will make your lewdness to cease from you, and remove your prostitution from the land of Egypt; so that you will not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.’
  • Deut 8:17and lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.”
  • Isa 20:4so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
  • Luke 5:21–22The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this that speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Jeremiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Jeremiah 13:22YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on JeremiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.

How Jeremiah 13:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.