Who hears the Voice of God? Scripture points to the period when Jeremiah began exhorting the nation to return to God: “in the fourth year of Jehoiakim…”

In these 23 years (v. 3), the prophet preached emphatically, but the people would not listen.

This does not mean that all of the prophet’s effort had been useless, that he had wasted his time or that his sacrifice to live hated and alone was all in vain. On the contrary, it was not Jeremiah whom Judah rejected, but the One who had sent him.