In | Workbook: Calls to Repentance

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Grab your Workbook Journal!

[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

The “weeping prophet” will offer many calls for the Israelites to repent. These calls have a formal structure like a legal “summons.” They often include a threat and an accusation.

Jeremiah tends to begin these with a warning, and a promise is typically involved. These four parts—warning, accusation, threat and promise—don’t appear in all of Jeremiah’s calls to repentance, but they are a standard pattern.

Let’s take Jeremiah 25:5-6 as an example.

Component	Jeremiah 25:5-6 NIV
Warning	Turn now, each of you . . . (5)
Accusation	From your evil ways and your evil practices . . . (5)
Threat	Do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made . . . (6)
Promise	Then I will not harm you . . . (6) and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your ancestors for ever and ever. (5)

Go to your workbook and do the same for Jeremiah 3:12-13. Complete the left column of the table, filling in one of the following in each row: warning accusation, threat and promise.

Component	Jeremiah 3:12-13 NIV
	I will not be angry forever. (Suggesting, “I will remain angry if you don’t repent.”)
	Return, faithless Israel.
	I will frown on you no longer, for I am faithful.
	You have scattered your favors to foreign gods, under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me.

See below for the complete passage and a completed table below:

“Return, faithless Israel,” declares the LORD,
“I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,” declares the LORD,
“I will not be angry forever.
Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the LORD your God,
you have scattered your favors to foreign gods
under every spreading tree,
and have not obeyed me,”
declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 3:12-13 NIV

Adapted from: Elmer A. Martens, Jeremiah, 1986, pp. 310-311.

Component	Passage
Warning	Return, faithless Israel . . . (12)
Accusation	You have scattered your favors to foreign gods, under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me . . . (13)
Threat	I will not be angry forever . . . (12)
Promise	I will frown on you no longer, for I am faithful . . . (12)