For weeks, Jeremiah didn't speak to anyone about what had happened in the field.
He guarded the encounter like one guards an open wound: carefully, fearfully,
silently. But the silence didn't protect him; it consumed him.
Every morning he woke up with a tightness in his chest, as if something were
burning inside him without being consumed. It wasn't physical pain, but neither
was it mere emotion. It was aurgency, a constant pressure that wouldn't leave
him alone.The fire in his bones.That's how he would describe it later, when he could no longer contain it.
In Anathot, life went on as usual. The priests repeated the rituals, the
merchantsThey negotiated unfair prices, children played in the streets unaware
that the world they knew was in danger. No one noticed the change in Jeremiah,
except his mother.
"You don't sleep," he told her one night, as he lit a lamp. "Your eyes are tired, but
your mind doesn't rest."
Jeremiah avoidedlook at her.
—I'm fine. It
was a lie.
The words haunted him even when he was awake. Sometimes he walked alone and
felt he had to speak, to warn, to shout. Other times, fear paralyzed him. Who would
listen to aBoy? Who would believe that God was speaking through him?
"What if I'm wrong?" he wondered. "What if it was all just a dream?"
But every time he tried to convince himself of that, the fire returned with greater
force.
One day, while helping his father in the small parchment warehouse, he hearda
conversation that shook him.
"Jerusalem is prospering," a man said. "The temple is full, the sacrifices never
cease. God is with us."
"It always has been," another replied. "Nothing will happen
to us." Jeremiah felt something ignite within him.
"Lie",he thought.
A dangerous lie.
Her hands began to tremble. She opened her mouth to speak… and immediately
closed it.
Fear was stronger. That
night, he fled to the
countryside.
He sat on a rock, his face in his hands. The sky was clear, indifferent.
"I can't," she whispered. "I'm not strong. I'm not brave. Why me?"Silence answered. Then,
the fire erupted.
It wasn't a vision, nor an audible voice this time. It was a searing certainty. The
words formed inside him, one after another, pressing in, demanding to be
released.
"Enough!" he shouted, pounding the ground. "I won't speak! I won't say anything
more!"
He tried to get up, to leave, to flee from that call he hadn't asked for. He gave a few
steps… and fell to his knees.
Because even if she closed her mouth, the words burned.
"There is in my heart..." she said between sobs, "like a burning fire locked away
in..."
My bones. I try to hold it in… and I can't.
For the first time, Jeremiah understood something terrible: he could
not escape.Not speaking wasn't an option. Staying silent would
destroy him from the inside.
At dawn, he decided to go to Jerusalem.
The city was everything Anathoth was not: large, noisy, proud. The temple stood
imposingly, and the people walked confidently, certain of their safety. Jeremiah
advanced among them.They felt like a stranger, small and insignificant.
He stopped near one of the temple gates. Priests were going in and out.wrapped in
clean robes, with confident faces.
"Speak," it burned within him.
He looked around. No one seemed willing to listen. He swallowed.
"Listen..." she said in a trembling
voice. Nobody stopped.
"Hey!" he repeated, a little louder.
Some eyes turned towards him, curious, annoyed.
—Thus says the Lord —he continued, surprising himself—: "This temple will not save
you if your hearts are far from me."The silence was immediate.A priest approached, frowning.
—Who are you to say that?
Jeremiah felt fear, but the fire sustained him.
"I am…" he hesitated. "I am just someone who speaks what God
has said." There were murmurs. Mocking laughter.
"Another prophet," someone scoffed. "What's he announcing now? Destruction?"
Punishment?
Jeremiah closed his eyes for a moment.
"If they don't change," he said, "this city
will fall." The air grew tense.
"Blasphemy!" a man shouted. "God will never abandon his temple."
Jeremiah wanted to respond, to explain, to plead. But they
weren't listening anymore. He was pushed, insulted, ignored.
When she left the temple, her legs were trembling. She leaned against a wall,
breathing heavily.with difficulty.
"This is just the beginning," he whispered.
That night, alone and exhausted, Jeremiah understood the price of his
calling.He would not be loved.
It wouldn't be
understood.It would
not be celebrated.
But he would be faithful.
And while Jerusalem slept in peace, the prophet who would weep for a nation gave his
first public step…
towards a path of rejection from which there would be no return.