In Jeremiah, chapter eleven, verses nineteen through twenty-three, starting at verse nineteen, “But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.” A few men of Anathoth, in Jeremiah’s homeland, plotted against him. They wanted to kill Jeremiah because he had remained faithful to the Lord God and had exposed their sins and idolatry. God assured the prophet that the conspirators would neither succeed in their plot nor survive the day of punishment. Jeremiah continued to proclaim the word of the Lord despite persecution.
The prophet Jeremiah tells much concerning himself, the times he lived in being very troublesome. Those of his own city plotted how they might cause his death. They thought to end his days, but he outlived most of his enemies. They thought to blast his memory, but it lives to this day, and will be blessed while time lasts. God knows all the secret designs of His and His people’s enemies, and can, when He pleases, make them known.
God’s justice is a terror to the wicked, but a comfort to the godly. When we are wronged, we have a God to commit our cause to, and it is our duty to commit it to him. We should also look well to our own spirits, that we are not overcome with evil, but that by patient continuance in praying for our enemies, and in kindness to them, we may overcome evil with good.
The devil is the one who devises devices against the godly by using the ungodly to attempt.