Read Jeremiah 4 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
4:1-2 {s} YHVH calls Israel to return to Him, and He will forgive them/ the nations shall glory in Him
4:3-8 {p} Judah + Jerusalem: circumcise your hearts, for the destroyer of nations is coming from the north
4:9 {s} In that day the heart of the king + princes shall perish/ priests + prophets shall be astonished
4:10-18 {p} The sword reaches to the heart of Judah in judgment against her: wash your heart of wicked ways
4:19-21 {p} The pain of Jeremiah’s heart, for he hears the sound of war + plunder against his people
4:22-26 {s} YHVH’s foolish people/ the vision of the earth, a desolate wilderness, without form and void
4:27-31 {p} The desolation + anguish of the daughter of Zion, but YHVH will not make a full end
The Strong themes:
3:6-4:8 {sx4+p} Judah has not returned to YHVH with a whole heart, but Israel will return; therefore circumcise your heart, O Judah
4:9-18 {s+p} The heart of the king, priests, prophets will fail, for the sword reaches it, therefore wash your heart of wicked ways
4:22-31 {s+p} YHVH’s foolish people, her future desolation and anguish, but YHVH will not make a full end
The Chiastic structures:
Jeremiah 2:29-4:8 Chiasm
Jeremiah 4:9-21 Chiasm
Jeremiah 4:22-31 Chiasm
Then I said, “Ah, Lord YHVH! Truly You have utterly let this people and Jerusalem be deceived, by saying, ‘You will have peace;’ but the sword has reached to the soul.” Jer 4:10
(This is my own translation; it differs from the NKJV. In the NKJV, it reads as if YHVH is the One doing the deceiving, but the verb grammar is causitive permission: someone else deceives, and YHVH allows it – up to a point.)
When did God say to the people that they would have peace?
Not by the mouth of Jeremiah; we have the record of his prophesies to date in chapters 1-4. But,
The priests did not say, ‘Where is YHVH?’ And those who handle the Law did not know Me, and the shepherds transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after what does not profit. Jer 2:8
The false prophets had been saying that God had ordained peace for Jerusalem. Recall that when Manasseh became king (687 BC), he slew all the true prophets, including Isaiah (2 Kin 21:16). If anyone aspired to be a prophet, they quickly learned to become a yes man in order to save their life. By the time Jeremiah was called (626 BC) there had been an echo chamber of “peace, peace” for forty years, the space of an entire generation.
God is not willing to let this deception stand, even though Manasseh and wicked Amon who followed him did their best. It is why He called Jeremiah to speak the truth, and why, we now know, Jeremiah was reluctant to accept it at first (Jer 1:4-8).
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