What follows the life and era of king David is the sad decline of the nation that once was God's people to their doom through disobedience and lack of respect for the One Who had made them great to begin with. Beginning with one man - who could have been the wisest man on earth - succumbing to the temptation of other gods - so much like Adam and Eve's temptation in paradise: Solomon, who had it all, but lost the kingdom because he wasn't satisfied with all, he wanted more.

Among the kings that followed there were some good, some bad, some who tried to do the best they could, but generally, the people's hearts had strayed from God. They may have been going through all the motions of worship: they had their temple, they had their rituals, just like today, but their hearts were far from Him (see Matth.15:8).

And so, once again God shows that He can make exceptions to His own rules. Just as He allowed Moses to have a wife who was technically speaking a "gentile," or chose Ruth, though not of Jewish blood, to be among the ancestors of not only the greatest king Israel ever had, but also His very Son, so He saw fit to use a heathen nation to chastise His own people for their disobedience.

One man who warned Israel of that fate was Jeremiah. But what do you do when you're one among hundreds of "prophets," and you're the only one who's constantly preaching "bad news?" As far as "success" with people or in his "career" as a prophet goes, Jeremiah was a total failure. He was a total loser when it comes to popularity. He was "out." His "friends" on myspace.com would have barely amounted to a handful. What was he doing wrong? And yet, why is he the one left standing among the saints and prophets of God and His prophecies counting among the Holy Scriptures of Judaism and Christendom, while all those other "prophets" of his time who prophesied peace have vanished into oblivion?

It seems like Jeremiah was onto something. Something odd and peculiar not very many people really care about called the truth. When it comes to the truth, people who are into this sort of thing end up quite lonely sometimes. The truth is sooo un-popular! We all want a world of lovey-dovey, sun and fun, and party-poopers who tell us of impending doom aren't very welcome. Especially when they try to tell us that our doom is directly connected to our own sins. What do you do with such people? Get rid of'em! Toss'em in the hole. Which is precisely what they did to Jeremiah. It was the Babylonians, who Jeremiah had warned the Jews for years were going to conquer Israel, who finally released him from imprisonment, while his fellow Jews were taken away as captives to Babylon.

Heavenly Input on Jeremiah:

(Jesus:) This is your ministry, to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant (Jer.1:10). It didn't really sound like "yeah, that's me" to Jeremiah, either, when I told him that I had set him over nations & kingdoms. With some of My prophets & servants, such as King David, Joseph of old, or Daniel, this could have been more obviously true, but Jeremiah was just a humble prophet, and so are you. You're a nobody, as far as the world is concerned, and yet, upon the likes of you hinge entire fates of nations.