I became a student of the book of Jeremiah because the prophet’s first-person prayers, called the “confessions,” touched something very deep within me. I had no words for that meeting of life and text then, but I continued to pursue this difficult work throughout my life as a teacher and interpreter. But despite my own involvement with the book, I found it harder and harder to teach it. In one class for pastors and ministers at Columbia Theological Seminary, I met
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