Scripture Daily

Context No. 1896 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 13:12-27: in context

12“Therefore you shall speak to them this word: ‘The LORD, the God of Israel says, “Every container should be filled with wine.”’ They will tell you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every container should be filled with wine?’ 13Then tell them, ‘The LORD says, “Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. 14I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says the LORD: “I will not pity, spare, or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.”’” 15Hear, and give ear. Don’t be proud, for the LORD has spoken. 16Give glory to the LORD your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it deep darkness. 17But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive. 18Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory. 19The cities of the South are shut up, and there is no one to open them. Judah is carried away captive: all of them. They are wholly carried away captive. 20Lift up your eyes, and see those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful flock? 21What will you say when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail? 22If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence. 23Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil. 24“Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness. 25This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me,” says the LORD, “because you have forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.” 26Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear. 27I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean. How long will it yet be?”

In a series of hard warnings, Jeremiah confronts a people so settled in their sin that they cannot turn from it. He pleads them toward humility, and then names their condition with a stark question: can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also may you do good, who are accustomed to do evil. Their evil has become as fixed a part of them as a leopard's spots; and by their own power they can no more change it than the leopard can shed its markings.

Jeremiah's image is vivid and troubling: can the leopard change its spots? He is describing the power of ingrained, habitual sin, sin that has been practiced so long it has become second nature, fixed, part of who we are, so that turning from it by our own effort seems as impossible as a leopard changing its spots. Those who are accustomed to doing evil, Jeremiah says, can no more suddenly do good than the leopard can shed its markings. It is a sober recognition of how deeply sin can entrench itself, how a habit long indulged becomes a bondage we cannot break by willpower alone. And most of us know the truth of it. There are sins we have struggled against for years, patterns so ingrained that every resolution to change collapses, habits that feel as fixed as our own skin. Jeremiah names this honestly: by our own power, we cannot change our spots. But the honesty is not the end of the matter, and the very impossibility points to the hope. For what is impossible for us is not impossible for God. The same Scriptures that name our helplessness before ingrained sin also promise what we cannot do for ourselves: I will give you a new heart, God says, and put a new spirit within you; I will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. The leopard cannot change its spots; but God can give us a new nature. The change we cannot work in ourselves, God can work in us. This is crucial, for it saves us from two errors: from the presumption that we can simply resolve our way out of deep sin by our own strength, which Jeremiah's image forbids; and from the despair that our ingrained sins are simply hopeless, which God's promise of a new heart forbids. We cannot change our own spots; but we can bring our helplessness to the God who gives a new heart, and ask him to do in us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Is there a sin so ingrained in me that every resolution to change collapses, a habit as fixed as a leopard's spots, and can I both give up the presumption that I can change it by my own willpower and refuse the despair that it is hopeless, bringing my helplessness to the God who promises to give a new heart and do in me what I cannot do myself?

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