in the years 609–598 B.C.E. Much more, it means that the word borne by Jeremiah comes precisely into the “life-world” of that king, into a world of conspiracy and self-serving that inevitably is a way to destruction. In that world Jeremiah must say what he must say. It is difficult for us in our privatized world to appreciate the depth or scope of Judah’s public experience of reality. It is not that Jeremiah was a believing man who simply read the newspapers and responded out of faith to the events