Jeremiah had had experience enough to know what the result would be. So he backed up his advice concerning Egypt with a public discourse, every line of which breathed hope for the future in Judah.
He tried to show that the old order of things had passed; that the old covenant between God and his people had been broken, never to be renewed again; that God would enter into a new covenant with them, a spiritual covenant, not so much with the whole nation, as with each individual. This is Jeremiah's memorable address at Mizpah:
"Behold the days are coming,
That I will sow Israel and Judah with the seed of man and the
seed of beast,
And as once I watched over them to pluck up and to afflict,
So will I be watchful over them to build and to plant.
"'Behold the days are coming,' saith the Lord,
'That I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
the house of Judah,
Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers,
In the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of
the land of Egypt,
My covenant which they themselves broke and I was displeased
with them;
But this is the covenant which I will make with the house
of Israel:
"'After those days,' saith the Lord,
'I will put my teaching in their breast and on their heart will
I write it;
And I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people.
And they shall not teach any more every man his neighbor,
And every man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord,"
For they shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest;
For I will forgive them their iniquities and remember their
sins no more.'"
On the day of the meeting to settle finally the question of emigration to Egypt, another shocking surprise awaited Jeremiah.
He was accused of being a false prophet; of not having received the message against going into Egypt from God, at all. He was accused of having conspired with Baruch, who, Jeremiah was told, being of noble family, had ambitions to become King of Judah. Finally he was warned that Baruch intended to hand all the remnant over to Nebuchadrezzar. More than that! It was determined to emigrate to Egypt at once and that both Jeremiah and Baruch must accompany the self-exiled.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Jeremiah, the Martyred.
The forcing of Jeremiah into Egyptian exile with the others was the stroke that finally broke Jeremiah's heart. Against such stiff-necked perversity he could hold out no longer. He submitted, like a lamb, this time to be led, literally, to the slaughter.