Jeremiah 11:21
Therefore thus saith the LORD of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand: Therefore thus saith the LORD of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand:
The word rendered life is the Hebrew neh-phesh, often translated soul, here used in the sense of a person's life under threat. The verse belongs to the prophecies of the book, in a section some associate with the roll written after Jehoiakim burned the first roll. It records the men of Anathoth seeking Jeremiah's life, threatening him with death and forbidding him to prophesy in the name of the Lord.
Their command was meant to silence the prophet so they would no longer be tormented by his faithful testimony. Their demand was an attempt to silence God's message and to pressure the prophet to speak what the people wanted to hear rather than what God had given him to say. The verse stands among awful denunciations against sin that express sorrow of heart over the people's transgression and a touching appeal to return to God, which meets utter lack of response from the mass of the people. The chapter predicts the breaking off of the branches of the good olive tree representing the family of Abraham because of violation of the covenant God made with his people when he brought them out of Egypt, the first covenant having been made with the people thus represented and the new covenant being made with the same people, by which those broken off can be grafted in again, with the Gentiles also.
Those who faithfully rebuke and warn presumptuous professors of religion must expect hatred and persecution even when they weep over them, pray for them, labor for their good, and are harmless and gentle as the lamb, patient and laborious as the ox, and without guile, receiving persecution instead of high esteem for their work's sake. The same spirit that crucified the holy Lamb of God hates faithful reprovers and would put them to death if able, seeking to destroy them in order to forget their testimony. In every age ungodly priests are ringleaders in this work of persecution, and a man's foes are often those of his own household, so that a prophet is most without honor in his own country.
The Lord knows his servants, protects them from the devices of persecutors, pleads their cause, and executes vengeance on their enemies by punishment with sword and famine leaving no remnant. When God reveals the enmity and plots of opposers, it is comfort to appeal to him as the heart-searching and righteous Judge that suffering is for well-doing and not evil-doing, to commit the cause to him, and to guard the spirit so as not to be overcome with evil but to continue in prayer for enemies and kindness to them in order to overcome evil with good.