In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
Parallel translations
- WEB “I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
- BSB “I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
- NKJV “In vain I have chastened your children; They received no correction. Your sword has devoured your prophets Like a destroying lion.
- NASB “In vain I have struck your sons; They did not accept discipline. Your sword has devoured your prophets Like a destroying lion.
- NLT “I have punished your children, but they did not respond to my discipline. You yourselves have killed your prophets as a lion kills its prey.
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's discipline failed to correct them, and they even killed His prophets. Their hearts remained hardened.
Overview
Yahweh laments that He struck their children to no avail, for they accepted no correction, and they devoured His prophets like a ravening lion. Neither chastening nor warning turned their hearts. Killing the messengers anticipates the rejection that culminated in the murder of God's own Son.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 25
- Neh 9:26Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.
- Acts 7:52Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
- 1 Th 2:15Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
- Isa 1:5Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
- Jer 26:20–24And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjathjearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah:
- Jer 5:3O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
- Matt 23:29Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
- Jer 7:28But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
- Isa 9:13For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
- Mark 12:2–8And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.
- Luke 11:47–51Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
- Rev 9:20–21And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
- Zeph 3:2She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God.
- Matt 23:34–37Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
- Matt 21:35–36And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
- 2 Chr 36:16But 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.
- Luke 13:33–34Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
- Jer 31:18I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.
- 2 Chr 28:22And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this is that king Ahaz.
- 1 Kgs 19:14And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
- 1 Kgs 19:10And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
- 2 Chr 24:21And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.
- Rev 16:9And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
- Jer 6:29–30The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
- Ezek 24:13In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.
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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 2:30 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
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