Jeremiah 12:1-4·~1 min
The Prosperity of the Wicked
Jeremiah begins by affirming that the LORD is righteous, yet he asks why the way of the wicked prospers and why the faithless live at ease. God has planted them and given them outward success, but though His name is on their lips, He remains far from their hearts.
R1ighteous are You, O LORD, 2You planted them, and they have taken root.
Jeremiah sets his own tested loyalty before the LORD and asks that the wicked be reserved like sheep for slaughter. Meanwhile the land mourns and creation withers because of its inhabitants' evil, while the wicked imagine that God does not see their end.
3But You know me, O LORD; 4How long will the land mourn
Section summaryThe chapter opens as Jeremiah brings a reverent complaint before the LORD, acknowledging His righteousness while asking why treacherous people flourish. The prophet contrasts the apparent stability of the wicked with his own tested loyalty and with the suffering of the land, whose mourning exposes the moral cost of unchecked evil.
Role in the chapterThis section gives voice to one of the chapter's main tensions: how divine justice can be confessed even while present conditions seem to contradict it. It frames the rest of the chapter as the LORD's response to a real and painful question rather than to cold abstraction.