Jeremiah 6:7 describes Jerusalem as a city that constantly produces wickedness, the way a spring keeps bringing up water. The prophet is not describing an occasional lapse but a settled, ongoing condition that comes from the inside out. God speaks through Jeremiah, the prophet who ministered in Judah in the years before Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, and the words are addressed to the city and its people.
As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.
Jeremiah 6:7 (WEB)
What Jeremiah 6:7 Means
The verse opens with a picture most of its first hearers would have understood at once. A well is only useful if it keeps producing water, and a spring does not stop to decide what it will release. In the same way, the prophet says, Jerusalem keeps producing wickedness as naturally as a well produces water. The wrongdoing is not a set of isolated acts but the steady output of a community whose habits and attitudes have become its character.
The second and third sentences then name what that output looks like: violence and destruction are heard in the city. Sounds of crushing people and tearing down what others have built fill its streets. The final sentence shifts the image from the city’s noise to God’s experience of it, saying that sickness and wounds are continually before him. The verb “before me” suggests that God is not looking away. He is confronted with the suffering day after day.
What the verse does not do is offer a comfortable promise. It is a diagnosis and a warning, not a statement that God will excuse or overlook what he sees. It also should not be read as a general claim that every person is wicked in exactly this way. Its target is a specific city under a specific judgment, and the force of the image comes from that particular setting.
The Context of Jeremiah 6:7
The book of Jeremiah is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who was called to speak in Judah during the final decades before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Chapter 6 is part of a series of oracles addressed to Jerusalem and Judah, warning that the nation’s sin has made judgment unavoidable. The audience is the city’s inhabitants and leaders, and the tone is that of a prophet who has been speaking for a long time and who now sees the coming siege as nearly here.
Just before verse 7, the surrounding passage in verses 4 and 5 calls for war against the city, with the attackers planning to advance at noon and by night. Verse 6 then introduces the Lord of Armies as the one who commands the cutting of trees and the building of a siege mound against Jerusalem, calling it “the city to be visited.” Read in that light, the image of the well is not a general reflection on human nature. It explains why the judgment is deserved: the city has become thoroughly oppressive, and the violence the prophet hears is the natural outflow of what the city has become. Verse 8 follows with an urgent appeal to be instructed before the desolation comes.
Key Phrases in Jeremiah 6:7
Proverbs 4:23
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.
(WEB)
This verse says the heart is the wellspring of life and calls for careful guarding of it. It pairs naturally with Jeremiah 6:7 because both locate the source of conduct within the person and insist that what flows outward reflects what is stored within.
Matthew 15:18
But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man.
(WEB)
Jesus teaches that evil words and deeds come from the heart rather than from outside influences. The passage echoes the prophet’s concern that wickedness flows from within, and it shows the same truth from a New Testament perspective.
A Short Prayer From Jeremiah 6:7
Lord, you see the wounds we carry and the harm we sometimes cause without thinking. Search the places within me where bitterness or carelessness has become a steady source, and help me notice what I am producing day after day. Where my heart has been running dry or running dirty, change the source itself. Give me honesty to name what is wrong, humility to ask for your help, and the courage to turn toward you while there is still time. Amen.