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"Woe is me now, for my soul is weary"

Text: Jeremiah 4:31

LAMENTING – TOO LATE

Would there be some who would realise that Jeremiah’s word of warning was true? Yes! They would lament badly. But it would be all too late!

“For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labour,
The anguish as of her who brings forth her first child,
The voice of the daughter of Zion bewailing herself;
She spreads her hands, saying,
‘Woe is me now, for my soul is weary
Because of murderers!'”
Jeremiah 4:31

1. “For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labour, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child”

a) War had come.

b) Devastation was taking place.

c) In the midst of all the suffering, some would give birth.

i) The voice of a woman in labour.

ii) In anguish, she would bring forth her first child.

iii) But would this childbirth bring joy?

2. “The voice of the daughter of Zion bewailing herself; she spreads her hands, saying”

a) The illustration is transferred to the daughter of Zion (Jerusalem).

b) She bewails herself.

c) There is despair instead of the usual joy expected.

3. “Woe is me now, for my soul is weary because of murderers!”

a) She cries “Woe”.

b) She is weary indeed.

c) But not because of her labour.

d) She is weary because of murderers.

i) Her child would be born in troubled time.

ii) She is surrounded by “murderers”.

iii) What kind of a future can her child hope to have?

e) Lament takes place for all the sins committed by the nation.

i) Evil only breeds evil.

ii) The future is bleak indeed.

iii) The joy of childbirth was gone!