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Jeremiah stood at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem, warning his people against complacency. “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these” (Jeremiah 7:4). He told them that if they would “throughly amend [their] ways,” then they could live in that land “for ever and ever,” but if they continued to break His commandments and worship idols, the temple would not save them (Jeremiah 7:5-15). “Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?” he asked (Jeremiah 7:11; see also Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46). They thought the building would protect them independent of their behavior, but as Mormon, King Benjamin, Alma, and Amulek would later teach, “the Spirit of the Lord doth not dwell in unholy temples” (Helaman 4:24; Mosiah 2:37; Alma 7:21; 34:36).

When Zedekiah sent servants asking Jeremiah to pray for his kingdom in the face of an impending Babylonian invasion, Jeremiah had only bad news for him. Like Moses many years earlier, he said, “I set before you the way of life, and the way of death” (Jeremiah 21:8; see Deuteronomy 30:15-20). But instead of promising deliverance to the righteous, Jeremiah offered his people a much less attractive choice: surrender and survive, or try to defend your city and die (Jeremiah 21:9-10).

Jeremiah made it clear that God had given the people many opportunities to repent:

And the Lord hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear.
They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever:
And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.
Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

Jeremiah 25:4-7; see also Jeremiah 7:25-26; 26:2-6; 29:17-19; 35:15; 44:4-6

The Book of Mormon opens with a mention of those prophets. After introducing himself and his book, Nephi says:

In the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.

1 Nephi 1:4

Nephi’s father Lehi learns in a vision that Jerusalem will be destroyed, and he joins those prophets:

After the Lord had shown so many marvelous things unto my father, Lehi, yea, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, behold he went forth among the people, and began to prophesy and to declare unto them concerning the things which he had both seen and heard.

1 Nephi 1:18

He is rejected by the people of the city, and the Lord commands him to take his family into the wilderness.

Later, Nephi tells us that the brass plates that his family carried into the wilderness contained “the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah; and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah” (1 Nephi 5:13). After he and his brothers return for Ishmael’s family, he couples the people’s rejection of Jeremiah with their rejection of their own father: “They have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison. And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land” (1 Nephi 7:14; see also Jeremiah 20:1-3).

Hundreds of years later, one of Nephi’s descendants, also named Nephi, included Jeremiah in a list of prophets who had spoken of Jesus Christ:

And behold, also Zenock, and also Ezias, and also Isaiah, and Jeremiah, (Jeremiah being that same prophet who testified of the destruction of Jerusalem) and now we know that Jerusalem was destroyed according to the words of Jeremiah. O then why not the Son of God come, according to his prophecy?

Helaman 8:20

This week, as we study Jeremiah 1-30, let’s also look for ways his words, in conjunction with the words of other prophets, anticipate not only the destruction of Jerusalem but also the saving mission of Jesus Christ.