Have you ever had a friend (or former friend, perhaps?) who asked you for constructive criticism, but you were hesitant to answer? “Don’t just tell me what I’m doing right. I want to know how I can improve. Be honest with me. Tell me what you really think.” But as soon as you say what you really think, he or she gets so angry that you wish you hadn’t! The leaders of the Jewish remnant didn’t really want to know Jeremiah’s opinion. They had already made up their minds that they were going to Egypt. So when Jeremiah said, “No! Stop! Don’t do it!” they were outraged. Despite his flawless record as a prophet, and despite their vow to do whatever God told them to do, they refused to listen. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “Johanan and the people respected Jeremiah enough to ask for his prayers, but they didn’t trust God enough to follow his counsel.” They said they wanted to follow God, but they wrongly assumed He was going their direction (v 1-3). If you have a god who never disapproves of your own ideas and preferences, this is a god of your own imagination, whom you have fashioned in your own image. The real God is so wise that our plans often do not fit into His agenda. Our natural inclinations are often foolish or downright sinful in the eyes of our holy Creator. Like the remnant of Jeremiah’s day, people still deny the Word of God, saying it is full of lies as they judge it by their own standards. But the Bible is God’s truth for all time, and we ignore it to our own peril. In migrating to Egypt, the remnant was writing their own death sentence (v 4-7). As they arrive on the frontiers of their new home, Jeremiah delivers another gloomy prophecy. Tearing up the pavement in front of the royal house, he announces that the rulers of Babylon were coming to set up camp on those very stones. What they had done in Jerusalem they will do in Egypt. Jeremiah describes in graphic detail how “Egypt’s impressive temples, gods, and obelisks… would prove merely combustible, portable, or breakable” (Derek Kidner). All national treasures would be destroyed or hauled away (v 8-13). This is a cautionary tale about willful disobedience to the revealed will of God. It is a sad ending to a sad story. Yet there is one observation that points us to our hope in Christ. When Jeremiah travelled to Egypt with the remnant (v 6), he displayed remarkable loyalty. The Babylonians had offered him a golden parachute, a generous pension (40:4). But Jeremiah preferred the people of God over the plush carpets of Babylon. By this courageous choice, we are given a glimpse of our Savior, who lovingly identified with sinners like us. For further meditation: