Do Not Take Away a Word Text: Jeremiah 26:1-6
Introduction: The Unedited Word
We live in an age of the perpetual edit. We curate our lives for public display, we filter our photos, we carefully craft our online personas, and we demand that our news be tailored to our preferences. We have become a people who believe that reality itself is subject to our editorial oversight. If a truth is uncomfortable, we demand a trigger warning. If a fact is inconvenient, we label it misinformation. If a moral standard is too high, we dismiss it as archaic and oppressive. We want a god who is subject to our veto power, a Bible with a find-and-replace function, and a gospel that has had all the sharp edges sanded off.
Into this timid and compromised generation, the prophet Jeremiah strides like a man from another world. He is not a focus group consultant. He is not a market-driven strategist. He is a herald, a messenger, an ambassador from the court of the living God. And the commission he receives in our text today is a direct assault on our entire modern way of thinking. God tells him to stand in the most public, most sacred, most volatile place in the nation, and to speak all the words God commands him to speak. And then He adds the crucial, terrifying injunction: "Do not take away a word!"
This is the central issue of all time, from the Garden to the final judgment. The serpent's first move was to edit God's word: "Did God really say?" He introduced a question mark where God had placed a period. He suggested that God's word was perhaps a bit too strong, a little too restrictive, and that a minor edit, a small subtraction, would make it far more reasonable. And ever since, mankind has been enthusiastically taking away words. We take away the words about wrath, about judgment, about hell, about sexual purity, about male and female, about the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ. We want a gospel of affirmation, not a gospel of repentance. We want a God who is a cosmic butler, not a sovereign King.
But a God whose word can be edited is not the true God. He is an idol we have fashioned in our own image, a ventriloquist's dummy into which we stuff our own preferred platitudes. The God of the Bible is the God who speaks, and whose speech creates and governs reality. To subtract from His word is not simply an act of disobedience; it is an act of cosmic rebellion. It is to declare that we know better than Him how the world ought to be run. Jeremiah's task, and the task of the church in every age, is to be faithful to the unedited manuscript. It is to declare the whole counsel of God, whether it is popular or not, because in that un-redacted word alone is the power of life and death, of judgment and of salvation.
The Text
In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from Yahweh, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Stand in the court of the house of Yahweh, and you shall speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the house of Yahweh all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not take away a word! Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the evil which I am devising to bring against them because of the evil of their deeds.' And you will say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh, "If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have given before you, to listen to the words of My slaves the prophets, whom I have been sending to you, rising up early and sending, but you have not listened, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth."'"
(Jeremiah 26:1-6 LSB)
The Setting and the Charge (vv. 1-2)
The scene is set with historical precision, grounding this divine confrontation in real time and space.
"In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from Yahweh, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Stand in the court of the house of Yahweh, and you shall speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the house of Yahweh all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not take away a word!'" (Jeremiah 26:1-2)
The timing is significant. Jehoiakim was a wicked king, a stark contrast to his reforming father, Josiah. Josiah had found the Book of the Law and led the people in a great renewal of the covenant. But upon his death, the spiritual rot returned with a vengeance under his son. This tells us that reformation is not a one-time event; it is a constant, generational battle. The church is always just one generation away from apostasy. Jehoiakim represents the institutional rejection of God's Word. Later in Jeremiah, this same king will take Jeremiah's scroll, cut it up with a penknife, and burn it in the fire (Jeremiah 36:23). He was a man who literally edited God's word out of existence.
The location is also crucial: "Stand in the court of the house of Yahweh." This was not a private meeting or a quiet word in the king's ear. This was a public proclamation at the very heart of the nation's religious life. People from all the cities of Judah were gathered there to worship. They were going through the religious motions, bringing their sacrifices, saying their prayers, all while their hearts were far from God. They had mistaken the temple, the building, for God Himself. They believed that as long as they had the temple, they were safe. It was their national talisman, their spiritual good luck charm. Jeremiah is sent to stand in the middle of their self-assured religiosity and detonate a truth bomb.
And the command is absolute: "speak... all the words that I have commanded you... Do not take away a word!" God knows the temptation for the preacher. The temptation is to soften the blow, to trim the sails, to make the message more palatable. It is the temptation to be a politician instead of a prophet. We are tempted to leave out the parts about judgment to get to the parts about grace. We are tempted to skip over the hard demands of discipleship to get to the comforting promises. But a partial gospel is a false gospel. A gospel without repentance is no gospel at all. God insists on the integrity of His message because every word is necessary. The warnings are as much a part of His grace as the promises are.
The Purpose of the Warning (v. 3)
God then reveals the gracious purpose behind this severe and unedited message.
"Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the evil which I am devising to bring against them because of the evil of their deeds." (Jeremiah 26:3)
Here we see the heart of God. The warning is not given because God delights in judgment. He does not. The warning is the instrument of mercy. The threat of judgment is intended to produce the repentance that makes the judgment unnecessary. This word "perhaps" does not indicate uncertainty in God, as though He doesn't know what will happen. Rather, it indicates the genuine nature of the choice presented to Judah. The offer of repentance is a real offer. The path of escape is a real path.
Notice the conditions. First, they must "listen." This means more than just hearing the sound waves; it means to hear with the intent to obey. Second, they must "turn from his evil way." True repentance is not just feeling sorry for your sin; it is a radical, 180-degree turn. It is forsaking the old path and setting your feet on a new one. It involves both a turning from evil and a turning to God.
And what is the result if they do this? God says, "that I may relent." The word for relent here means to sigh, to be moved with compassion. This is not God changing His mind in the sense of His eternal decrees. God's decrees are fixed. But God has decreed to respond to the actions of His creatures in history. He has decreed that if a nation repents, He will relent from the announced disaster. The warning of judgment is part of the means He uses to bring about the repentance that He has decreed to bless. This is a glorious truth. Our God is not a fatalistic deity, indifferent to our choices. He is a living God who interacts with His people, who invites them, warns them, and responds to their repentance with overwhelming compassion.
The Foundational Disobedience (vv. 4-5)
God now has Jeremiah specify the core of their rebellion.
"And you will say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh, "If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have given before you, to listen to the words of My slaves the prophets, whom I have been sending to you, rising up early and sending, but you have not listened..."'" (Jeremiah 26:4-5)
The fundamental sin is a failure to listen. All their other sins, their idolatry, their social injustice, their immorality, were symptoms of this root disease. They had stopped listening to God. And this deafness manifested in two ways. First, they refused "to walk in My law." God's law was not a set of arbitrary rules; it was the blueprint for human flourishing, the manufacturer's instructions for life. To reject it was to choose chaos and death.
Second, they refused "to listen to the words of My slaves the prophets." The prophets were not freelance religious gurus with their own hot takes. They were God's slaves, His bondservants, speaking His words. To reject them was to reject God Himself. And notice the tender earnestness of God: "whom I have been sending to you, rising up early and sending." This is a beautiful anthropomorphism. It pictures God as an eager master, getting up before dawn to make sure His message gets to His people. He is not reluctant to warn them. He is zealous, persistent, and passionate in His pursuit of them. Their deafness was not because God was silent, but because they had deliberately stopped their ears.
The Unthinkable Judgment (v. 6)
Finally, the unedited word concludes with the specific, shocking consequence of their continued disobedience.
"then I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth." (Jeremiah 26:6)
This was the sentence that almost got Jeremiah killed. To understand its impact, you have to understand the significance of Shiloh. Shiloh was the place where the Tabernacle, the house of God, first rested for centuries after the conquest of Canaan. It was the original center of worship for Israel. But because of the wickedness of the priests and the people in the time of Eli, God abandoned Shiloh. The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, and Shiloh was destroyed, never to be rebuilt as a center of worship (Psalm 78:60). It became a byword for desolation.
By saying, "I will make this house like Shiloh," God was delivering the ultimate blow to their false security. He was saying, "This magnificent temple you are so proud of, this building you think makes you invincible, is not sacred in itself. I made it holy by My presence, and I can and will remove My presence. I abandoned My house once before for sin, and I will do it again. Your religious real estate will not save you." This is a permanent warning to the church. We must never put our trust in our buildings, our traditions, our denominations, or our religious activities. Our only security is in the presence of the living God, which is maintained through humble faith and obedient listening.
And the result would be that Jerusalem, the city meant to be a blessing to the nations, would become "a curse to all the nations of the earth." Instead of being a beacon of God's light and truth, it would become an object lesson in divine judgment, a cautionary tale whispered among the pagans. This is the tragic reversal of the Abrahamic covenant. When God's people refuse to walk in His ways, they turn their blessing into a curse.
Conclusion: The Shiloh of the Heart
This message is not just for ancient Judah. It is for us. The temptation to trust in the externals of religion is perennial. We can trust in our church attendance, our baptism, our theological correctness, our cultural heritage. We can be gathered in the court of the Lord's house, singing the songs and hearing the sermons, while our hearts are far from Him.
And God still sends His messengers today, rising early and sending. He sends them through the preaching of His unedited Word, the Bible. And that Word still comes with the same structure: a call to listen, a warning of judgment, and a glorious offer of grace. The law still exposes our sin, showing us our "evil way." The prophets and apostles still thunder against our idols of comfort, security, and self-righteousness.
And the warning of Shiloh still stands. But for us, the warning is even more pointed, because a greater temple has come. Jesus stood in Jerusalem and said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). He was speaking of the temple of His body. The physical temple in Jerusalem was just a shadow. Christ is the reality. And when the leaders of Judah rejected Him, God did make that house like Shiloh. In A.D. 70, the Romans destroyed it so completely that not one stone was left upon another.
The choice before us is the same choice that was before them. Will we listen? Will we turn? The good news of the gospel is that the judgment that Jerusalem deserved fell upon Christ at the cross. He became the curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made "Shiloh" so that we, by faith in Him, could become the living temple of God, a house that can never be destroyed. But this promise is only for those who listen. To refuse to listen to the Son is a far greater sin than refusing to listen to Jeremiah. It is to take the unedited word of God's grace and to burn it in the fire of our pride. Therefore, let us be a people who hear the whole counsel of God, who tremble at His warnings, who flee to His grace, and who, by that grace, turn from our evil ways and walk in His law.