Bible Strands
Jeremiah 2:23
“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through Jeremiah to Judah, confronting their denial of idolatry immediately after declaring that ritual washing cannot remove their guilt.
The words — The Hebrew term נִטְמֵאתִי (nit.Me.ti) literally means "I have made myself unclean," directly countering the people's claim of ritual purity.
The thread — This confrontation of self-deceived purity echoes Proverbs 30:12, while the valley reference anticipates the idolatrous sacrifices at Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom recorded in Jeremiah 7:31.
Why it lands — The text demands that the audience examine their actual conduct rather than rely on verbal denials of guilt.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 7:31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.
- Proverbs 30:12 There is a generation of those who are pure in their own eyes and yet unwashed of their filth.
- Genesis 3:12 And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
- 1 Samuel 15:13 When Samuel reached him, Saul said to him, “May the LORD bless you. I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.”
- Esther 8:16 For the Jews it was a time of light and gladness, of joy and honor.
- Psalms 36:2 For his eyes are too full of conceit to detect or hate his own sin.
- Psalms 50:21 You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
- Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
- Proverbs 30:20 This is the way of an adulteress: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong.’
- Isaiah 57:5 who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?