Day 228: The Watchman's Duty (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 how we fit into that story today. It is day 228 Congratulations, y'all. We're reading from Jeremiah 5, Ezekiel 33, and Proverbs 14, verses 21-24. As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, the 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 also can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on Subscribe, and you would receive daily episodes every single day, including today, day 228, Jeremiah 5, Ezekiel 33 in Proverbs 14, verses 21 through 24
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 5, The Godlessness of Jerusalem. Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem. Look and take note. Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her. Though they say, As the Lord lives, yet they swear falsely.
O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to repent.
Then I said, These are only the poor. They have no sense, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the law of their God. I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the Lord, the law of their God. But they alike had broken the yoke. They had burst the bonds.
Therefore, a lion from the forest shall slay them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them, a leopard is watching against their cities. Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many. Their apostices are great.
How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of harlots. They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife. Shall I not punish them for these things, says the Lord? And shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end. Strip away her branches, for they are not the Lord's. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the Lord. They have spoken falsely of the Lord, and have said, He will do nothing, no evil will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind, the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them.
Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, because they have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words and your mouth a fire, and this people would, and the fire shall devour them. Behold, I am bringing upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, says the Lord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. Their quiver is like an open tomb, they are almighty men. They shall eat up your harvest and your food, they shall eat up your sons and your daughters, they shall eat up your flocks and your herds, they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees, your fortified cities in which you trust, they shall destroy with the sword.
But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not make a full end of you. And when your people say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? You shall say to them, As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah, Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear me, says the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the bound for the sea, a perpetual barrier which it cannot pass. The waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it.