Jeremiah 16-20 (The Daily Walk Bible).
It’s not so bad being a simple preacher and not a prophet. Jeremiah had some significant physical and psychological pain as a result of his calling. In addition to the message he shared, he also had to live out some object lessons: the ruined belt (chap. 13), abstinence from marriage (chap. 16), the potter’s jar (chap. 19), the yoke (chap. 27), and the purchase of a field (chap. 32).
Jeremiah 18 may have inspired Paul to say: “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:20–24)
Jeremiah 17:7-8 is amazing (and it reminds me of Psalm 1): “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Amen!