Readers' Theatre: Jeremiah 2: 4-13

Here’s a readers’ theatre setting of Jeremiah 2: 4-13.  It is set for two voices.

Readers’ Theatre

(Jeremiah 2: 4-13)

Listen to the word of the Lord, people of Jacob—

all you families of Israel! 

This is what the Lord says:

What did your ancestors find wrong with me
that led them to stray so far from me?
They worshiped worthless idols,
only to become worthless themselves.
They did not ask,

Where is the Lord
who brought us safely out of Egypt

and led us through the barren wilderness—
a land of deserts and pits,
a land of drought and death,
where no one lives or even travels?

And when I brought you into a fruitful land
to enjoy its bounty and goodness,

you defiled my land and
corrupted the possession I had promised you.
The priests did not ask,

Where is the Lord?

Those who taught my word ignored me,
the rulers turned against me,

and the prophets spoke in the name of Baal,
wasting their time on worthless idols.

Therefore, I will bring my case against you.
I will even bring charges against your children’s children
in the years to come.

Go west and look in the land of Cyprus
go east and search through the land of Kedar.
Has anyone ever heard of anything
as strange as this?

Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones,
even though they are not gods at all?
Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols!
The heavens are shocked at such a thing
and shrink back in horror and dismay.

For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water.
And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns
that can hold no water at all!