The Righteousness of a Harsh Prayer Text: Jeremiah 18:18-23
Introduction: When They Want to Cancel God's Messenger
We live in an age that has grown soft, sentimental, and squishy about the justice of God. We want a God who is endlessly affirming and entirely therapeutic, a celestial grandfather who pats us on the head regardless of what we do. Consequently, when we come to passages like this one in Jeremiah, we tend to get the vapors. This is an imprecatory prayer. It is a prayer that calls down curses, judgment, and divine wrath upon the heads of God's enemies. And it is not just any prayer; it is a prayer from Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, inspired by the Holy Spirit and recorded for our instruction.
The modern evangelical instinct is to blush and skip over such passages, as though they were some embarrassing uncle in the biblical family. We are far more comfortable with "God is love" than we are with a God who gives children to famine and men to the sword. But if we are to take the whole counsel of God, we must deal with the whole Bible, including the parts that make our therapeutic age uncomfortable. We must understand that a right view of God's love necessitates a right view of His wrath. A God who loves righteousness must, by definition, hate unrighteousness. A God who is indifferent to evil is not a good God.
The context here is crucial. Jeremiah has just delivered the parable of the potter and the clay, a stark reminder of God's absolute sovereignty over the nation of Judah. God has the right to reshape or to shatter the vessel as He sees fit. But even in this declaration of absolute authority, God graciously offers a way out: "if that nation...turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it" (Jer. 18:8). The response from the establishment is not repentance. It is a conspiracy. They decide to cancel the prophet. They plan to "strike at him with our tongue." This is the ancient equivalent of a coordinated de-platforming campaign, a smear job designed to destroy his credibility so that no one will "give heed to any of his words."
In response to this wicked plot, Jeremiah does not turn the other cheek in some sappy, sentimental way. He turns to God and prays one of the harshest prayers in all of Scripture. And in doing so, he teaches us a vital lesson about the nature of justice, the hatred of evil, and the zeal that all of God's people ought to have for the vindication of God's holy name.
The Text
Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to perish from the priest, nor counsel to the wise man, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words.”
Do give heed to me, O Yahweh, And listen to the voice of those who contend against me!
Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good on their behalf, So as to turn away Your wrath from them.
Therefore, give their children over to famine And deliver them up to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be smitten to death, Their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
May an outcry be heard from their houses, When You suddenly bring raiders upon them; For they have dug a pit to capture me And hidden snares for my feet.
Yet You, O Yahweh, know All their deadly counsel against me; Do not atone for their iniquity Or blot out their sin from before You. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!
(Jeremiah 18:18-23 LSB)
The Conspiracy of the Establishment (v. 18)
We begin with the plot against the prophet:
"Then they said, 'Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to perish from the priest, nor counsel to the wise man, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words.'" (Jeremiah 18:18)
Notice who is behind this. It is the religious and intellectual establishment. They are the priests, the wise men, and the court prophets. They are the credentialed class, the insiders. Their argument is one of institutional preservation. They are saying, "We are the system. We have the law, the counsel, the word. This man Jeremiah is a threat to our entire enterprise. He must be silenced." They have a vested interest in the status quo, and Jeremiah's message of repentance and judgment threatens their power, their prestige, and their pocketbooks.
Their chosen weapon is the tongue. "Let us strike at him with our tongue." This is a campaign of slander, misrepresentation, and character assassination. It is the tool of choice for those who cannot win the argument on the merits. When you cannot refute the message, you attack the messenger. They plan to create such a cloud of lies and accusations around Jeremiah that the people will dismiss him entirely. This is precisely what the Sanhedrin did to Jesus, and it is what the world and the worldly church still do to those who speak God's truth without compromise.
Their goal is explicit: "let us give no heed to any of his words." The ultimate aim of cancel culture is not debate; it is erasure. It is to make the truth-teller a non-person, to ensure his message is not heard, or if it is heard, it is not taken seriously. This is a profound act of rebellion. They are not simply rejecting a man; they are plugging their ears to the word of Yahweh Himself.
The Prophet's Appeal (v. 19-20)
Jeremiah, hearing of their plot, turns immediately to the court of heaven.
"Do give heed to me, O Yahweh, And listen to the voice of those who contend against me! Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good on their behalf, So as to turn away Your wrath from them." (Jeremiah 18:19-20 LSB)
Jeremiah's first move is to pray. He takes his case to the ultimate Judge. He asks God to do what his enemies refuse to do: to "give heed." He then lays out the fundamental injustice of their actions. "Should good be repaid with evil?" This is a foundational principle of moral reality. The wickedness of their plot is magnified by the fact that Jeremiah had been laboring for their good.
He reminds the Lord, not because God forgets but to establish the basis of his appeal, that he had stood in the gap for these very people. He had interceded for them. He had prayed for God to "turn away Your wrath from them." His ministry, as harsh as it sounded to them, was an act of profound love. He was like a doctor telling a patient he has cancer; the news is terrible, but the telling of it is an act of mercy, intended for healing. They have repaid this mercy by digging a pit for his life. Their response to his love was a murderous conspiracy. This is not a simple disagreement; it is a profound moral inversion.
The Imprecation (v. 21-23)
Based on this gross injustice, Jeremiah launches into his prayer for judgment. And he does not mince words.
"Therefore, give their children over to famine And deliver them up to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be smitten to death, Their young men struck down by the sword in battle." (Jeremiah 18:21 LSB)
This is shocking to our modern sensibilities. He prays for their entire family lines to be cut off. He is asking God to execute the very covenant curses that God had promised would fall on a rebellious people (Deut. 28). This is not a personal temper tantrum. Jeremiah is not asking for something outside of God's revealed will. He is asking God to be God. He is asking God to uphold His own covenant law and to act according to His own sworn promises. He is praying biblically.
He continues, describing the terror that should befall them. "May an outcry be heard from their houses, When You suddenly bring raiders upon them" (v. 22). He is praying for the consequences of their sin to come home to them, swiftly and terribly. He repeats their crime: "For they have dug a pit to capture me And hidden snares for my feet."
Then comes the final, ultimate petition:
"Yet You, O Yahweh, know All their deadly counsel against me; Do not atone for their iniquity Or blot out their sin from before You. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!" (Jeremiah 18:23 LSB)
This is the heart of the matter. "Do not atone for their iniquity." He is praying that God would not forgive them. He is asking God to hand them over to their sin. This is a recognition that there is a point of no return. There is a sin that leads to death (1 John 5:16). These men had so hardened their hearts, so set their faces against God and His prophet, that they had crossed a line. Their conspiracy was not just a political maneuver; it was a "deadly counsel," a fixed and settled determination to murder the truth.
Jeremiah is praying that God would treat them as the reprobate they had shown themselves to be. He is asking for pure, unadulterated justice. "Deal with them in the time of Your anger!" This is not a prayer for personal vengeance. Notice that Jeremiah commits the matter entirely to God. He does not say, "Let me at them." He says, "You, O Yahweh... Deal with them." He is entrusting justice to the only one who can execute it perfectly and righteously.
Conclusion: Praying Against God's Enemies Today
So what are we to do with a prayer like this? First, we must recognize that it is an inspired prayer. It is therefore a righteous prayer. It is not an example of Jeremiah "losing his cool." It is an example of Spirit-filled zeal for the glory of God and the justice of His name.
Second, we must understand the principle. The imprecatory psalms and prayers are for God's enemies, who have shown themselves to be hardened and implacable. They are not for the brother who annoys you at church or the neighbor whose dog barks at night. They are for those who have set themselves with high-handed rebellion against the covenant Lord and His Christ. We are commanded to love our personal enemies, to pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44). This means praying for their conversion, their repentance, their good. Jeremiah did this. He stood before God to speak good for them. It was only when they repaid that good with a deadly, fixed conspiracy that the imprecation became appropriate.
In the New Covenant, the principle remains. We pray for the salvation of all men. We long to see our enemies converted. But we also pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." And for God's kingdom to fully come, evil must be judged. Paul says of Alexander the coppersmith, who did him great harm, "the Lord will repay him according to his deeds" (2 Tim. 4:14). The souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10). This is a righteous cry for justice.
When we see wicked men in our day devising plans to silence the church, to corrupt our children, to celebrate perversion, and to strike at the truth with their tongues, it is right for us to be angry. It is right for us to pray that God would throw down their wicked schemes. It is right for us to pray that He would deal with them in His anger. We leave the timing and the methods to Him, but our desire must be for His righteousness to prevail and His name to be vindicated. A church that cannot pray these kinds of prayers against the entrenched, institutional evil of our day is a church that has lost its nerve, a church that has made its peace with the world, and a church that has forgotten the holiness of the God we serve.