"And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me."
I think this is the saddest verse in the whole chapter. Zedekiah secretly speaks with Jeremiah to learn more of what was going to happen. Yet he cannot bring himself to do as Jeremiah tells him. What powerful tools the adversary uses to keep us from being obedient to the will of the Lord, fear and concern about what others will think of me. Zedekiah will let the city be destroyed, and lives lost, because he is afraid of being mocked.
I've been sitting here thinking that there is a lesson here on the effects of bullying. Why is it that children have killed themselves over being bullied or mocked? Zedekiah basically did the same thing. Out of fear of being mocked he was willing to let himself be killed. As a child I used to hear "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Well now words are hurting people. There must be a very deep anchor to the soul to have words never hurt me. There can be no coincident that the more society identifies with no religious beliefs, the more they identify with words hurting them.
Day 1358
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