Bible Strands
Jeremiah 2:30
“I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel during a legal confrontation over their rebellion, immediately after detailing disciplinary strikes that failed to produce repentance.
The words — לַ/שָּׁוְא (la/shaV') translates to "for vanity" or "in vain," and מוּסָר (mu.Sar) means "correction," marking the rejected purpose of divine judgment.
The thread — This pattern of rejecting messengers appears in Nehemiah 9:26, Acts 7:52, and 1 Thessalonians 2:15, where communities consistently kill or persecute those sent to call them back.
Why it lands — The text states that refusing correction leaves a people to consume themselves, and it requires readers to stop treating divine warnings as optional.
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
In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 9:26 But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.
- Acts 7:52 Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—
- 1 Thessalonians 2:15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,
- Isaiah 1:5 Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
- Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
- Jeremiah 26:20 Now there was another man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land the same things that Jeremiah did.
- Isaiah 9:13 But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the LORD of Hosts.
- Jeremiah 7:28 Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.
- Matthew 23:29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous.
- 1 Kings 19:10 “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”