Daily Worship

Scene: A group protesting polluted water

James Cathcart August 31, 2025 0 0
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Jeremiah 2: 4-13 (NIVUK)

4 

Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob,
    all you clans of Israel.

5 This is what the Lord says:

‘What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
    and became worthless themselves.

6 

They did not ask, “Where is the Lord,
    who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
    through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
    a land where no one travels and no one lives?”

7 

I brought you into a fertile land
    to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
    and made my inheritance detestable.

8 

The priests did not ask,
    “Where is the Lord?”
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
    the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
    following worthless idols.

9 

‘Therefore I bring charges against you again,’
declares the Lord.
    ‘And I will bring charges against your children’s children.

10 

Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
    send to Kedar and observe closely;
    see if there has ever been anything like this:

11 

has a nation ever changed its gods?
    (Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
    for worthless idols.

12 

Be appalled at this, you heavens,
    and shudder with great horror,’
declares the Lord.

13 

‘My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

A quiet voice speaks in a village hall:

 

A broken system

that starts to falter

a broken cistern

that won’t hold water.

 

Crumbling pipes

water stopped,

unequal lives

and a price on rain drops.

 

Rivers no longer big enough to contain 

all the limitless uncaring and scorn

the rubbish, the sewage, the shame

the strips of the social fabric we’ve torn.

 

All that’s left

Is to love one another through this

to remember the gifted humanity we’ve kept

to begin to undo this.

 

Prayer:

 

Lord in heaven,

lift our hopes from leaky cisterns

skyward to the reservoirs of heaven.

 

Amen.