Troparion in Tone 1)
From thy mother's womb thou wast sanctified by the Creator
in His foreknowledge, and from thy swaddling bands
thou wast filled with prophetic wisdom.
O wise Jeremiah, thou didst lovingly lament the fall of Israel.
Honoring thee as a Prophet and Athlete we cry out to thee:
glory to Him Who has glorified thee;
glory to Him Who has crowned thee;
glory to Him Who has given thee to us as a fervent intercessor.

Troparion in Tone 2
Celebrating the memory
of Your Prophet Jeremiah, O Lord,
for his sake, we entreat You to save our souls.

Kontakion in Tone 3
Cleansing your radiant heart through the Spirit,
O great Prophet and Martyr,
glorious Jeremiah,
You received from on high the gift of prophecy.
You cried out with a great voice to the nations:
This is our God, and there is none other beside Him
who became incarnate and appeared on earth.

The Holy Prophet Jeremiah was born 650 years before Christ in the village of Anathoth, not far from Jerusalem. He began to prophesy at an early age, during the reign of King Josiah (Jet. 01:01-19). The prophet Jeremiah was active in Jerusalem during the tragic period of the city's destruction by the Babylonians, which occurred over several stages. Jeremiah prophesied during the reigns of various kings: beginning in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (626 BCE), and then Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, and during the brief rule of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, whose assassination in around 585 BCE marked the final end of the remaining Jewish community in Judah and Jerusalem and symbolized the conclusion of the First Temple period.

Jeremiah prophesied an ineluctable, unavertible disaster. He launched his prophetic mission in his native village of Anathoth, but was rejected by the villagers. Jeremiah castigated the people bitterly for forsaking God and the Torah and turning to idolatry. With a sense of the inevitability of a terrible punishment, he felt disgusted with his life. Gradually he became the leading exponent of the approach which called for surrender to Babylonian might and not attempting a rebellion against its awesome strength under the auspices of Egypt. This was considered a defeatist stance and as such was rejected both by the people and by the various kings during whose reigns Jeremiah uttered his prophecies.

Jeremiah rejected the idea that Jerusalem and the Temple had an almost magical inviolability. Viewed as a traitor, Jeremiah was declared an outlaw during the reign of Zedekiah and placed in detention until the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar. He saw the shattering of the last hope for the survivors of the carnage: the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had appointed to rule over Judah. Although Jeremiah was saliently a prophet of apocalypse, he emphasized the temporary nature of the destruction and the consolation to be found in the certainty of the nation's return to its land.

He preached repentance to the King and nobles and the false prophets and priests, and, in the time of that King Josiah, barely escaped death at the hands of the enraged nobles. He prophesied to King Jehoiakim that his burial would be like that of an ass; that is, he would be cast dead out of Jerusalem and his body would be for a long time dragged around the ground without burial (22:18). For this, Jeremiah was thrown into prison. Being unable to write there, he sent for Baruch, who stood outside the window of the prison while Jeremiah dictated to him. When the King read this prophecy, he took the paper in fury and threw it into the fire.

By the providence of God, Jeremiah was saved from prison, and the words of the prophecy were fulfilled upon Jehoiakim. He prophesied to King Jeconiah that he would be carried off to Babylon with his whole family and that he would die there, all of which quickly came to pass (24:1; 27:20). Under King Zedekiah, he put a yoke on his neck and walked through Jerusalem prophesying the fall of the city and slavery under the yoke of Babylon (27:2). He wrote to the slaves in Babylon, telling them that they would not return to Jerusalem but would remain for seventy years in Babylon, which came to pass (25:11).

In the valley of Topnet, near Jerusalem, where the Jews had brought children to the idols for sacrifice, Jeremiah took a whole pot in his hands and smashed it in front of the people, prophesying the imminent crushing of the Jewish Kingdom (19:10-11). The Babylonians soon over-ran Jerusalem, killed King Zedekiah, burned the city down and utterly destroyed it.

They slaughtered an enormous number of Jews in the valley of Topnet, in the place where children had died as sacrifices to idols and where the prophet had broken the pot. Jeremiah, with the Levites, took the Ark out of the Temple and bore it off to the mountain of Nebo, where Moses had died, and hid it in a cave. He hid the fire from the altar in a deep well. He was forced by some Jews to go with them to Egypt, where he lived for four years and was then stoned to death by his countrymen. He prophesied to the Egyptians the destruction of their idols and the coming there of a Virgin with a Child. There is a tradition that Alexander the Great himself visited the grave of the Prophet Jeremiah,* and ordered that his body be moved and buried in Alexandria.

The Egyptians almost deified Saint Jeremiah, and they therefore buried him as a king. He was regarded as a wonder-worker after his death. The dust from his tomb was taken as a medicine against snake-bite, and today many Christians invoke his help against it.

The prophetic vision that affirmed principles of absolute justice and morality emerged in the Jerusalem of the First Temple period. This, together with the traditions related to the genesis of the three monotheistic faiths, transformed Jerusalem into a major city in the history of human civilization. The prophets emphasized the concept of historical linearity, which maintains that the flawed present, with its rampant suffering and injustice, will ultimately undergo a radical metamorphosis, and that finally absolute justice, peace, harmony, and spiritual awareness will prevail. It was in Jerusalem that people first lifted their eyes toward a more hopeful future.

The prophet Jeremiah was active in Jerusalem during the tragic period of the city's destruction by the Babylonians, a process that involved several stages. Beginning in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (626 BCE), Jeremiah prophesied during the reigns of a number of kings: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, and during the brief rule of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, whose assassination in ca. 585 BCE put a final end to the remnant of the Jewish community in Judah and Jerusalem and symbolized the conclusion of the First Temple period. Jeremiah's prophecies of destruction spoke of an ineluctable, unavertible disaster: "Lo, I am bringing against you, O House of Israel, a nation from afar declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation... a nation whose language you do not know... Their quivers are like a yawning grave they are all mighty men. They will devour your harvest and food, they will devour your sons and daughters..." (Jeremiah 5:15-17). And again: "As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry of prayer on their behalf, do not plead with Me; for I will not listen to you"(7:16). The prophet, who launched his mission in his native village of Anathoth, lying northeast of Jerusalem, was rejected by his fellow villagers, as his doom-laden prophecies would later be rejected in Jerusalem: "Assuredly, thus said the Lord of Hosts concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life and say, 'You must not prophesy any more in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hand ... 'I am going to deal with them: the young men shall die by the sword, their boys and girls shall die by famine" (11:21-22).

Jeremiah severely castigated the people for forsaking God and the Torah and turning to idolatry. Aware of the inevitability of a terrible punishment, he felt disgust with his life (20:14-18). Gradually he became the leading exponent of the approach which called for surrender to Babylonian might and not attempting a rebellion against its awesome strength under the auspices of Egypt (chs. 25, 27, 32, 33, etc.). This was considered a defeatist stance and as such was rejected both by the people and by the various kings during whose reigns Jeremiah uttered his prophecies. The concept which had been successfully enunciated by the prophet Isaiah about a century earlier, holding that Jerusalem and the Temple possessed an almost magical inviolability, had become distorted by Jeremiah's time, and was no longer bound up with the moral leadership of the nation. The prophet railed against this approach:"Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place. Don't put your trust in illusions and say, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these [buildings]. ... therefore I will do to the House which bears My name, on which you rely... just what I did to Shiloh" (7:3-4, 14). Considered a traitor, Jeremiah was placed outside the law during the reign of Zedekiah and placed in detention until the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar (39:14) . He saw the shattering of the last hope for the survivors of the destruction in the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had appointed to rule over Judah. Although Jeremiah was saliently a prophet of apocalypse, he emphasized the temporary nature of the destruction and the consolation to be found in the certainty of the nation's return to its land.