17. (a) According to Jeremiah, what judgment was to come upon wicked Jerusalem? (b) What will soon happen to Christendom?

¹⁷ What judgment will Christendom’s false teachers receive from Jehovah, the great Judge? Jer 23 Verses 19, 20, 39, and Jer 23:40 answer: “Look! The windstorm of Jehovah, rage itself, will certainly go forth, even a whirling tempest. Upon the head of the wicked ones it will whirl itself. The anger of Jehovah will not turn back until he will have carried out and until he will have made the ideas of his heart come true. . . . I will give you people to neglect, with finality, and I will desert you and the city that I gave to you and to your forefathers​—from before me. And I will put upon you reproach to time indefinite and humiliation to time indefinite, which will not be forgotten.” All of that happened to wicked Jerusalem and its temple, and now a like calamity will soon befall wicked Christendom!

21. (a) Why was Jerusalem destroyed in 607 B.C.E.? (b) After Jerusalem’s destruction, what happened to the false prophets and to Jehovah’s true prophet, giving us what assurance today?

²¹ Jehovah’s judgment was executed in Jeremiah’s day when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E. As prophesied, that was a ‘reproach and humiliation’ for those stubborn, unfaithful Israelites. (Jeremiah 23:39, 40) It showed them that Jehovah, whom they had repeatedly dishonored, had finally deserted them to the consequences of their badness. The mouths of their presumptuous false prophets were finally silenced. Yet, Jeremiah’s mouth kept prophesying. Jehovah did not desert him. True to this pattern, Jehovah will not desert the Jeremiah class when his weighty decision leads to crushing the life out of Christendom’s clergy and those who believe their lies.