Day 224: The Weeping Prophet (2026)

**Fr. Mike Schmitz** (0:04)
Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds, and I'll weave it into that story today. Congratulations, you guys have made it today, 224 and the beginning of the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, where we're reading today from Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 27 So, only two chapters or one chapter a piece from both our prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as well as reading from Proverbs 14, verses 5 through 8 As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe in your podcast app to this podcast and receive daily episodes. I don't know if you knew that. Not many people say that and I rarely have ever mentioned it.
So if that's something that you are interested in, please feel free to follow that interest and unravel that piece of thread and keep pulling on it until you subscribe. As I said, it is day 224 We're reading from the beginning of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. We're going to hear today of the call of Jeremiah to be a prophet and his commission is being sent by the Lord to be a prophet. We're also going to hear Jeremiah kind of push back a little bit on this call. As well as we're going to go into the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Yesterday I mentioned that Ezekiel had prayed that, you know, I didn't get the right line, but it was basically the idea that we want to love what God loves. We want to hate what God hates. And I mentioned a song. I just want to say it right off the bat. It was the line was, I was like, what? How did I not get this? It's a line that says, break my heart for what breaks yours. And Ezekiel is going to be praying that. But today he's going to be lamenting over a foreign nation. He's going to be lamenting over the nation of Tyre, the city of Tyre really. And we get to be part of that as well as Proverbs 14, verses 5-8. So once again, we're reading, it's date 224, 224, gosh, easy for me to say, we're reading Jeremiah 1, Ezekiel 27, Proverbs 14, verses 5-8.
The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 1, Introduction.
The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anaphoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
Jeremiah's Call and Commission.
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Then I said, Ah, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say I am only a youth, for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a rod of almond. Then the Lord said to me, you have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it. The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, what do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot facing away from the north. Then the Lord said to me, out of the north shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord, and they shall come, and everyone shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls round about, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgments against them for all their wickedness in forsaking me. They have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. But you, gird up your loins, arise, and say to them everything that I command you, do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.