Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Haven’t you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you by the way?
- KJV Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way?
- NKJV Have you not brought this on yourself, In that you have forsaken the Lord your God When He led you in the way?
- NASB “Have you not done this to yourself By your abandoning the Lord your God When He led you in the way?
- NLT And you have brought this upon yourselves by rebelling against the Lord your God, even though he was leading you on the way!
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
God says Israel brought this ruin on itself by forsaking Him. Their suffering flows from their own choices.
Overview
Yahweh asks whether Israel has not caused its own trouble by forsaking the LORD who was leading them. The verse places responsibility squarely on the people's apostasy. It teaches the sobering truth that turning from God exposes us to harms His guidance would have spared us.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Jer 4:18“Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”
- Jer 2:19Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
- Jer 2:13“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- Deut 28:15–68If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
- Ps 107:7He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live.
- Hos 13:9You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me—against your helper.
- Ps 77:20You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
- Lev 26:15–46and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,
- Deut 32:10He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
- 2 Chr 7:19–20But if you turn away and forsake the statutes and commandments I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods,
- Ps 78:53–54He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.
- Ps 136:16He led His people through the wilderness. His loving devotion endures forever.
- Deut 32:19When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.
- Isa 1:4Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.
- Job 4:8As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.
- 1 Chr 28:9As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.
- Isa 63:11–14Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,
- Num 32:23But if you do not do this, you will certainly sin against the LORD—and be assured that your sin will find you out.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 2:17 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.