Babylon’s destruction
Day 385, Sunday, Aug. 31
Jeremiah Chapter 50
Until now Jeremiah has been surprisingly positive about Babylon, recognizing it as an instrument of God’s wrath against the Jewish people. Now, though, he prophesies that will come to an end and Babylon itself will fall and the people of Israel will return home.
In verses 18 and 19 we read, “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria. But I will bring Israel back to their own pasture, and they will graze on Carmel and Bashran; their appetite will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.”
Not only will the people of Israel return to their own land, God says through Jeremiah, but they will return to obedience.
In verse 5 we read, “They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Sunday meditation

Job 29:1-17
Job continued his discourse: “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone on my head and by his light I walked through darkness! Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house, when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me, when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.
“When I went to the gate of the city and took my seat in the public square, the young men saw me and stepped aside and the old men rose to their feet; the chief men refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands; the voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths. Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them. The one who was dying blessed me; I made the widow’s heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth.

Prayer focus
Lord, return us to our home and to our God.