“My heart is gone; grief is upon me;

my heart is sick.

Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people

from far and wide in the land:

‘Is [God] not in Zion?

Is [Love] not [within] her?’”

These powerful and heart-wrenching verses come from the Prophet Jeremiah. He begins his service to God as an Israelite priest in Jerusalem. God, then, calls Jeremiah to “warn Israel of the severe consequences of breaking their covenant with God through idolatry and injustice” (The Bible Project 2025). In the first half of Jeremiah’s book, he sees that God’s people are turning away from God and worshipping false idols: representations of greed and power contrary to the message of God’s love and faith. He, too, sees his people’s rampant oppression and neglect of widows, orphans, and immigrants, who God seeks to protect and claim throughout the entirety of our Scripture. He recognizes the apathy of the priests and leaders in Jerusalem, and he fears that their ego will lead the people into ruin. In chapters eight and nine of his book, Jeremiah pleads with his people to return to God. He underscores the severity that will fall upon Jerusalem, corrupting even the Temple on Mount Zion, where God’s presence dwells. While these words were written thousands of years ago, one of our roles as people of faith and as caretakers of the Word of God is to try our best, with the help of God, to understand what these words may mean to us in our current context. To do so, I invite you to join me as we apply these verses from Jeremiah to an everyday, almost hidden, ethical dilemma that affects most of us, as well as our neighbors–in four parts