“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.
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.
- KJV In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath 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.
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 9:26“Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.
- Acts 7:52Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
- 1 Th 2:15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and didn’t please God, and are contrary to all men;
- Isa 1:5Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
- Jer 26:20–24There was also a man who prophesied in Yahweh’s name, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath Jearim; and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.
- Jer 5:3O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
- Matt 23:29“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous,
- Jer 7:28You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’
- Isa 9:13Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.
- Mark 12:2–8When it was time, he sent a servant to the farmer to get from the farmer his share of the fruit of the vineyard.
- Luke 11:47–51Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
- Rev 9:20–21The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.
- Zeph 3:2She didn’t obey the voice. She didn’t receive correction. She didn’t trust in Yahweh. She didn’t draw near to her God.
- Matt 23:34–37Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city;
- Matt 21:35–36The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
- 2 Chr 36:16but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.
- Luke 13:33–34Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, for it can’t be that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem.’
- Jer 31:18“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
- 2 Chr 28:22In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against Yahweh, this same king Ahaz.
- 1 Kgs 19:14He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
- 1 Kgs 19:10He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
- 2 Chr 24:21They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of Yahweh’s house.
- Rev 16:9People were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They didn’t repent and give him glory.
- Jer 6:29–30The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away.
- Ezek 24:13In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you shall not be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.
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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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