Pride - Jeremiah 13

Jeremiah 13:9 "Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem."

Pride is a subject that could take up many pages. Here we discuss the pride that is associated with arrogance. It is not, (I don't think) the way we use the word when we speak of our children.

Pride: conceit; haughty behavior - I think is the definition we are looking for.
arrogance: offensive exaggerating one's own importance

My thought on the matter is that we can be blessed by God to do certain things which put one in a position of leadership (and power) then the individual forgets that it is through God's power that they do what they do and begin to feel it is within themselves that they perform. That is arrogance and pride.

Proverbs 8:13 "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate."

Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

So we find Jerusalem and Judah about to fall. They have been begged to turn back to God even while the enemy is approaching with a great army, but they would not. After Jeremiah reasoned with God in the last chapter, we find here and illustration of the pride of Judah and Jerusalem.

v1 "Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water."

v4 "Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates and hide it there in a hole of the rock."

So Jeremiah does as he is told and after some days he is instructed to go and get the linen cloth and he sees how it is soiled and good for nothing. Such is the pride of Judah and Jerusalem, the LORD tells him.

v11 "For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear."

He goes on to say that the people will be drunk and staggering against each other and there will be no pity for them. The kingdom is lost because of pride. Although a physical enemy is approaching, the real enemy is within the nation itself.

v23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

v27 "I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?"

II Kings 24:15 "And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon."