Jeremiah 2 Devotional

Trading the Fountain for Cisterns

““For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”Jeremiah 2:13 (BSB)

God opens his case against Israel with a memory. He recalls the devotion of their early days, when they followed him like a bride through the wilderness (2:2). Then comes a question full of hurt: what fault did their ancestors find in him, that they wandered so far (2:5)? Later he asks whether he has ever been a barren wilderness or a land of darkness to them (2:31). This is not a cold judge filing charges but a wronged husband asking why he was left.

At the center stands one picture. His people have abandoned him, the spring that never runs dry, and have dug their own cisterns, cracked ones that cannot hold anything (2:13). The heavens themselves are told to be appalled (2:12). Every substitute for God takes great effort and still leaks. Jesus offered living water to a tired woman at a well, water that would end her thirst for good (John 4:13-14). Whatever you have been digging for, the spring is still flowing.

To think about: What broken cistern have you been working hardest to fill, and what would it look like to come back to God as your source today?