Remember Me, O Lord

19          Hear me, O Lord,
and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
            20          Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
                        Remember how I stood before you
to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.
            21          Therefore deliver up their children to famine;
give them over to the power of the sword;
                        let their wives become childless and widowed.
May their men meet death by pestilence,
their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
            22          May a cry be heard from their houses,
when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!
                        For they have dug a pit to take me
and laid snares for my feet.
            23          Yet you, O Lord, know
all their plotting to kill me.
                        Forgive not their iniquity,
nor blot out their sin from your sight.
                        Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
Jeremiah 18:19-23
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Remember Me, O Lord
Jeremiah stands alone, opposed by those he has faithfully served. They repay good with evil, digging a pit for his life. Jeremiah’s prayer is raw and imprecatory, calling for God’s justice against unrepentant enemies. This jars modern ears, yet it reveals a deeper truth: the faithful suffer not for wrongdoing, but for speaking God’s Word. Jeremiah’s cry finds its fulfillment in Christ. Jesus, too, was hated without cause, repaid with betrayal, and handed over to death. Yet where Jeremiah calls for judgment, Christ bears that judgment in His own flesh. On the cross, He prays not for destruction, but for forgiveness. In our own trials, when we are slandered or opposed for the truth, we entrust ourselves to the same Lord. He remembers us, not to condemn, but to redeem. In Christ, justice and mercy meet, and we are kept in His saving care.