Sour Grapes

Jeremiah 27-31

Jeremiah had a tough job as a prophet to the people of Israel for the words the Lord God told him to speak to the people were not words they wanted to hear. God told Jeremiah to put on a yoke as an object lesson to show how the people of Israel would be under the yoke of Babylon and that if anyone said otherwise, they were lying. The people preferred to listen to the prophet Hananiah, because he said they would surely not suffer under the yoke of Babylon. Hananiah lied and died. God told Jeremiah to tell the Israelites that they might as well settle down in Babylon... get a house and land, have children, marry your children off, etc. because you're going to be there for 70 years. The people preferred to listen to the prophet Shemaiah, because he said otherwise. Shemaiah lied and was punished by God. God told Jeremiah to report this to the people...

“The people will no longer quote this proverb: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.’ All people will die for their own sins—those who eat the sour grapes will be the ones whose mouths will pucker. “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord. “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

What is music to our ears today was just more talk to the unbelievers of Jeremiah's day for they could not see beyond their immediate desires. Oh that we would not be the same. Alas, it is too late for this generation seeks self over God even though he has indeed written his words upon our hearts.