Jeremiah watched the people passing
by.Men in a hurry.
Women carrying jugs.
Children playing in the narrow
streets.Everything seemed normal.
And yet, I knew that something was deeply wrong.
"It's not Babylon," he thought.
—It's not the armies.
—They are not stone idols.It's the heart.
That morning, the Lord spoke to him with a clarity that shook him to his core.
—The sin of Judah is written with an iron chisel—he told him—
.Engraved on the tablet of his heart.
Jeremiah felt the weight of those words.
"It's not superficial," he murmured. "It's embedded."
He walked to a high place from which he could see much of Jerusalem. From there,
the city seemed peaceful, even devout. The temple gleamed in the sun. The smoke
fromThe sacrifice kept rising.
"If someone were looking from afar," he thought, "they would
say that everything is fine. But God wasn't looking from afar."
Jeremiah sat down and began to speak, not to the crowd, but to the wind, as if he
knewthat someone would listen.
—Cursed is the man who trusts in man—he proclaimed—,
who makes flesh his arm
and turns his heart away from the Lord.
An elderly man who was passing by stopped.
"What are you saying, prophet?" he
asked. Jeremiah looked at him sadly.
—We are like a bush in the desert —he continued—.
We don't see when good things are coming.
The old man frowned.
"We trust in God," he replied. "We always have." Jeremiah shook his head.
—We trust in the temple—he
said—. In alliances.
In rituals.
But not in
Him.The old man walked away,
uncomfortable.Jeremiah
sighed.
—Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord—he said now in a lower
voice—.It will be like a tree planted by the waters.
He closed his eyes.
That image sustained him.
"Even in drought it will not fear," he
whispered. "Its leaf does not wither."
The contrast was
brutal.Two types of
life.
Two types of heart.
Later, Jeremiah went to the temple. He observed the priests performing each rite
with
Precision. Everything was in order… on the outside.
"Who can understand the heart?" he asked aloud.A young
priest heard him.
"God gave us the law," he replied. "If we obey it, we're all right."
Jeremiah stared at him.
"The heart is deceitful above all things," he said. "And
wicked."
The young man was offended.
—Are you calling us perverse?
—I call us humans —Jeremiah replied—.
Including myself.
The priest walked away without answering.
Jeremiah was left alone, struggling with those words that also pierced him.
—And me? —he thought—.—Is my heart different?That night, he prayed with fear.
"Examine me," he said. "Test
my mind and my heart."
The silence was intense.
And then she understood something terrifying and
liberating at the same time:God was not surprised by the
corruption of the people.
What hurt him... was his self-deception.
"They say they love me," Jeremiah
thought, "but they live as if I didn't exist."
The next day, Jeremiah spoke again.
—Thus says the Lord—he proclaimed—:
"I, the Lord, search the heart."
The people listened, uneasy.
"It cannot be hidden," he continued.
"Not even after sacrifices."
Not even after holy
words. A woman raised
her voice.
"So what does God want from us?" Jeremiah
looked at her with compassion.
—Truth —he replied—. A
true heart.
A profound silence fell.
—They observe the Sabbath —he said—,
But they carry injustice in their hands.
They honor the day…
But they despise the weak.
Some lowered their gaze.
Others hardened their faces."It's not about appearances," Jeremiah continued.
"It's about who they belong to on the inside."
That afternoon, Jeremiah walked alone along the city wall. He thought about
everything that had happened.seen, in everything he had said.
"Can the heart change?" he wondered.
—Or are we doomed?
The answer did not come as an immediate promise, but as a future hope.
Days will come…
days when I will write my law on my heart.
Jeremiah didn't understand everything…
But he kept it.
That night, she cried again.
Not just because of Judah…
but because of the human condition.
"We're experts at deceiving ourselves," he whispered.
—In calling evil good.
—To ease one's conscience.He
looked up at the sky.
"If you don't transform us from within," he
said, "no city will be saved."
He windbreath.
And Jeremiah understood that his message was not just for his
time.It was for all time.
Because empires
change,temples fall,
Cities are burning…
But the human heart remains the most dangerous battlefield of all.And as long
as that heart remains untouched,
No nation will truly be safe.