Jeremiah 23:1 · World English Bible
Jeremiah 23:1 Meaning Woe to the Shepherds Who Destroy
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh.
What does Jeremiah 23:1 mean?
The tending powers within a person, the guiding thoughts meant to keep the gentle faculties gathered, have turned instead to scattering them. Sheep are the mild, receptive states of the soul, the quiet impulses that graze in the inner field and need a keeper to hold them together.
From the Esoteric reading below.
Jeremiah 23:1 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The tending powers within a person, the guiding thoughts meant to keep the gentle faculties gathered, have turned instead to scattering them. Sheep are the mild, receptive states of the soul, the quiet impulses that graze in the inner field and need a keeper to hold them together. When the shepherding mind fails, these are driven apart and lost across the flesh, no longer moving as one flock toward the higher pasture.
The pasture is the ground of nourishment within, the settled inner life where such states are fed. Woe falls on the leading faculties that break this unity, because a person whose gentle powers are dispersed cannot be led upward at all. The inner flock scatters when the mind that should guide it wounds it instead.
Pastors: the tending, guiding powers of the mind meant to keep the gentle faculties gathered Sheep: the mild, receptive states of the soul, the quiet impulses that need a keeper to hold them together Pasture: the ground of inner nourishment, the settled inner life where those gentle states are fed
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Live Jeremiah 23:1 today
- When you catch yourself talking to yourself the way you would never talk to a friend, stop mid sentence and say the kinder version out loud, even if it feels silly. The tone you use on yourself is the weather your softer parts live in.
- With someone close today, let one small tender thing stand without fixing it or making a joke of it. If they say they are tired or sad, just say you hear them, and leave the space open.
- In a meeting or a hard call, when you feel something gentle in you start to speak and the voice inside says it will sound weak, say it anyway in plain words. The part of you that keeps you human is the first thing pressure tries to scatter.
Which part of me have I been driving off, and what would it take to call it back?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Metta
The practice begins by turning kindness toward yourself, because a mind harsh with itself drives off the softer parts it most needs. What is treated gently stays close.
Tao Te Ching
The hard and forcing breaks; the soft and yielding endures. A will that pushes everything in you scatters the very parts that were keeping you whole.
Sufism · Rumi
The tender states in a person are guests who come and go, and the host's job is to keep the house warm enough that they return. Shame at the door sends them away for good.
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