Jeremiah 2

The Lord commanded Jeremiah to cry out to Jerusalem, saying, "I remember you, the kindness of your youth...when you went after Me in the wilderness. Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase."

God wanted to know what injustice He had committed that they had turned their backs on Him to follow after idols. Afterall, God had brought them into a "bountiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness." But they defiled the land and made it an abomination. 

God charged His people with forsaking Him, "the fountain of living waters, and [making] themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that can hold no water." They have gone astray and brought calamity on themselves. 

However, in their time of trouble they will turn back to God and ask Him to save them. So why not seek help from their man-made gods and idols?

COMMENTARY

A little context: chapter two through six were during the first five years of Jeremiah's ministry, which were five years before the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple. The young king Josiah was seeking the Lord, but he did not have the Word of God, yet. 

Back to chapter two: God is asking Israel to remember the beginning of their relationship with Him when He brought them out of Egypt. They sought the Lord. But now that they are in the land, they have forgotten Him. However, God has not forgotten them. 

God addressed the spiritual leaders because the responsibility was on them. Nations decay after they succumb to spiritual apostasy, which leads to "moral awfulness, and finally political anarchy." But the Lord will not give up on them, and He will plead with them for decades. 

The rest of chapter two focuses on the idolatry of the people. 

When man rejects God, he always makes an idol. When people make their own god, they make it as they want it. They make a god whose demands they can meet. In other words, it is actually a projection of the old nature of man. 

from Bible Art