In Jeremiah, chapter twenty-one, verses eight through ten, “And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.”
“The way of life and the way of death” is the theme title and the latter part of verse eight, where Jeremiah prophesied that if they did not submit to God’s decreed judgment and surrender to the Chaldeans and the Babylonians, they would die in the city. “Life,” however, here does not always mean prosperity, but the avoidance of death. In the Old Testament, life itself was not a secure possession, but as a spoil which a man seizes on the field of battle, and with which he hastens away, lest another should deprive him of it.
For believers and unbelievers, life does not guarantee that everyone will prosper and receive everything their hearts desire. Some will live in prosperity, some in luxury, while others will live their lives in misery. Jesus in John fourteen, verse six, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Believers who trust in the Lord will have peace in whatever financial circumstance they are currently experiencing. However, the ungodly are not so: They rely on others or on themselves.