Jeremiah calls out to God in chapter 12 with a pointed complaint. How can He let all those evil people plotting against him escape consequences? Why aren't bad things happening to these bad people? Why does God plant them securely in the land instead of uprooting them?
"Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them, and they take root; they grow and bring forth fruit; you are near in their mouths yet far from their hearts" (vs. 1-2). These are some mean and nasty people who have been threatening Jeremiah with death. But instead of rooting them up, God seems to be cementing them in place. Jeremiah may remember that his ministry, after all, was a call "to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10).
God's response seems to be "just wait." He promises that there is indeed a time of judgment coming for those evildoers and troublers of the prophet. Punishment is on its way, and it will involve a destruction of those who currently seem safe. "Thus says the Lord concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: I am about to pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them." Though the plotting men may be a fixture in the land now, a time of uprooting is coming.
But even in the midst of this judgment, there is mercy. God promises that the people will be given a second chance to live according to the covenant. If they learn to follow God instead of Baal, they will be built up in the land. "But if any nation will not listen, then I will completely uproot it and destroy it, says the Lord" (vs. 17). Their fate, to be planted or uprooted, is really in their own hands.
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