THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAS
Jeremias was a priest, a native of Anathoth, a priestly city in the tribe of Benjamin: and was sanctified from his mother's womb, to be a prophet of God; which office he began to execute when he was yet a child in age. He was in his whole life, according to the signification of his name, Great before the Lord; and a special figure of Jesus Christ, in the persecutions he underwent for discharging his duty; in his charity for his persecutors; and in the violent death he suffered at their hands: it being an ancient tradition of the Hebrews, that he was stoned to death by the remnant of the Jews who had retired into Egypt.
Jeremias Chapter 1
The time, and the calling, of Jeremias: his prophetical visions. God encourages him.
1:1. The words of Jeremias the son of Helcias, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin.
1:2. The word of the Lord which came to him in the days of Josias the son of Amon king of Juda, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
1:3. And which came to him in the days of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, unto the end of the eleventh year of Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda, even unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive, in the fifth month.
1:4. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
1:5. Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.
1:6. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.