Jeremiah 2: The Fountain of Living Waters

"Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase" (2:2–3).

"What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt…? The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal" (vv. 5–8).

"Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently… Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit… For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (vv. 10–13).

"Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number… Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents" (vv. 32–34).

Cisterns

Iron Age hill-country towns depended on plastered cisterns cut into limestone to store winter rain. A cracked cistern lost its water through the summer. Springs ("living water") were rarer and more reliable. Jeremiah's image would have been immediate to his hearers; Joseph was thrown into an empty cistern (Genesis 37:24), and Jeremiah himself would be lowered into one (38:6).

A covenant lawsuit

Chapter 2 uses the vocabulary of a lawsuit (riv, "I will plead with you," v. 9) and summons the heavens as witnesses (v. 12, "Be astonished, O ye heavens"), like Isaiah 1 and Micah 6. The case rests on the covenant relationship of the exodus. The prophets used legal forms as rhetoric; the chapter is not a court record.

Marriage and infidelity imagery

Like Hosea, Jeremiah describes the covenant as a marriage and idolatry as adultery and prostitution. The imagery assumes an ancient household in which a wife's sexuality belonged to her husband, and it shames a female figure for a whole people's sins. Readers within faith traditions and outside them have discussed its harms as well as its rhetorical force; the site explains it and keeps the ethical question visible (INV-11, planned).