Read the passage and its setting
Jeremiah 5:1–9, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Jeremiah 5:1–9
Jerusalem's Search Finds Hardened Falsehood
The Main Point
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
What Is Happening Here?
The prophetic word through Jeremiah carries this movement. A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
The preceding unit, Jeremiah 4:23–31, established: A vision of land without form, fleeing cities, divine desolation, and a woman gasping in labor renders siege as cosmic undoing.
The next unit, Jeremiah 5:10–18, turns to “A Distant Nation Comes, but Not for a Full End”: Vine branches are stripped and a powerful foreign nation becomes the instrument of siege, yet total destruction is explicitly limited.
Follow Jeremiah's Prophetic Movement
See why this section appears here and how the author's prophetic movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
This unit's distinct contribution is “Jerusalem's Search Finds Hardened Falsehood”: A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Follow the Speech, Scene, Sign, Lament, or Oracle
The unit begins at 5:1 with the speech, scene, image, or date named in its title.
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
At 5:9 the movement reaches its response or transition before the next unit.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Stated movement
The prophetic word through Jeremiah carries this unit. A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Placement in Jeremiah
This unit's distinct contribution is “Jerusalem's Search Finds Hardened Falsehood”: A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Uncertainty and ethical limit
The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and…”
·
This is the exact opening KJV clause of Jeremiah 5:1–9; read it inside the full thought unit.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Jeremiah 5:1–9 in its dated, literary, and whole-book setting rules out this use:
The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Context check: A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return. Its interpretive limit is: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
What Remains True Today
Worship, truth, justice, and treatment of neighbors belong together.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
The prophetic word through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 5:1–9: A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return. Its interpretive limit is: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Worship, truth, justice, and treatment of neighbors belong together.
What proportionate response follows?
Name the concrete conduct and power relations before drawing a limited present analogy; refuse ethnic stigma and coercion.
A Concrete Example
Before applying Jeremiah 5:1–9, state its ancient referent, summarize its whole movement, name the enduring truth, and refuse this overreach: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Teach It Back
Explain Jeremiah 5:1–9 in your own words. Name its place in Jeremiah, one source-controlled observation, one uncertainty, one enduring truth, and one harmful use the passage does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Stated movement
The prophetic word through Jeremiah carries this unit. A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Placement in Jeremiah
This unit's distinct contribution is “Jerusalem's Search Finds Hardened Falsehood”: A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Uncertainty and ethical limit
The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and…”
The opening KJV clause anchors this unit in its actual reported speech, action, or measurement. MorphHB and NET were checked so the phrase remains inside Jeremiah 5:1–9 rather than carrying a neighboring verse's claim.
How certain? very strongWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Exilic setting and recoverable limits
This Judah- or Israel-directed oracle uses covenant accusation, poetry, and public rhetoric within the Josianic through exilic horizon.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
KJV wording in 5:1–9
The pinned KJV remains displayed exactly. MorphHB and the NET notes expose older English, difficult syntax, and material alternatives. The controlling uncertainty or ethical limit here is: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
How certain? probableEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Jeremiah within Jewish Scripture
Jeremiah 5:1–9 belongs first to Jeremiah's exilic prophetic-priestly book and its conversations with Torah, temple traditions, kingship, land, and earlier prophets. Later Jewish and Christian reception must not erase Israel or the first horizon.
How certain? probableHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Canonical relationships after the first horizon
Torah, Samuel-Kings, Josianic reform traditions, earlier prophets, lament, exile, return, Branch, covenant, Babylon, and later Jewish and Christian reuse may clarify trajectories only after Jeremiah 5:1–9 is read in Jeremiah's own movement and Israel-and-Judah horizon.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
No reviewed local variant changes Jeremiah 5:1–9's central movement. The book-level difference between the longer Masoretic form followed by the KJV and the shorter, differently ordered Old Greek form remains material and is not denied by this local judgment.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do responsible readings differ?
Best judgment: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Within Jeremiah 5:1–9, divine presence, holiness, judgment, responsibility, hope, land, leadership, and human limitation must be weighted according to The prophetic word through Jeremiah rather than flattened into a timeless slogan.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
How certain? probableCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
A vivid line in Jeremiah 5:1–9 can be detached from the dated exilic setting, literary form, surrounding unit, and book-level movement.
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return. Its interpretive limit is: The search scene does not authorize vigilantism, warrantless surveillance, or assuming poverty or wealth automatically determines guilt.
Worship, truth, justice, and treatment of neighbors belong together.
A citywide search for justice fails among poor and great alike; false oaths and exploitation answer repeated calls to return.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Jeremiah 5:1–9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a critical apparatus or interpretation.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jer.xml, OSIS 5:1–9
Supports: Verse-level controls for Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, dates, names, textual problems, and material translation alternatives.
Official NET Bible Jeremiah PDF, pp. 1258-1459, translator, study, and textual notes attached to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Supports: Reader-oriented historical, literary, theological, and pastoral synthesis with ancient-to-modern limits.
Enter the Bible Jeremiah course, Summary, Outline, Background, and Introductory Issues: call, early preaching, temple sermon, and laments; applied to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Supports: Current university-level literary-historical synthesis and explicit composition questions.
Yale Bible Study, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Jeremiah Part 1 study guide, pp. 1-6: composition, Josianic setting, temple sermon, and imperial context; applied to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Jeremiah 5:1–9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Jeremiah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2; fixed commit
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a critical apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jer.xml, OSIS 5:1–9
Open the fixed Hebrew Jeremiah file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Jeremiah with Translator, Textual, and Study Notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; official eBible PDF distribution, NET Bible Second Edition; official PDF accessed 2026
Supports: Verse-level controls for Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, dates, names, textual problems, and material translation alternatives.
Exact location: Official NET Bible Jeremiah PDF, pp. 1258-1459, translator, study, and textual notes attached to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Open the official NET Jeremiah PDF ↗modern scholarly book course
Jeremiah: Summary, Outline, Background, Introductory Issues, Themes, and Bible in the World
Terence E. Fretheim and Michael Chan
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, current public course accessed 2026
Supports: Reader-oriented historical, literary, theological, and pastoral synthesis with ancient-to-modern limits.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Jeremiah course, Summary, Outline, Background, and Introductory Issues: call, early preaching, temple sermon, and laments; applied to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Open the Enter the Bible Jeremiah course ↗open university study guide series
Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Jeremiah Parts 1-3 Study Guides
Joel S. Baden and Jacqueline Vayntrub
Yale Bible Study, 2024
Supports: Current university-level literary-historical synthesis and explicit composition questions.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Jeremiah Part 1 study guide, pp. 1-6: composition, Josianic setting, temple sermon, and imperial context; applied to Jeremiah 5:1–9
Open the Yale Jeremiah and Ezekiel course ↗