Jeremiah felt so intensely alone during one of the bleakest hours of Judah’s history, that his book is scattered throughout with laments, even complaints, about his call to be a prophet. Nevertheless, each time he resolved to throw in the towel, the word of God became, as it were, an inextinguishable fire within him.
Jeremiah’s ministry occurred in the century following Isaiah and Amos. By that time, collections of the oracles of earlier prophets were in existence, and perhaps it is from one of these that Jeremiah is reading. On the other hand, perhaps he is reading from the Law, making mental note that the standards by which people ought to live, and the way they do live, do not correspond.
Jeremiah was utterly despondent about any possibility of genuine repentance on the part of his contemporaries. He had absolute faith in Yahweh, however, and of his promises. He predicted that the day would come when the Law -- and all that it was intended to achieve -- would be fulfilled by a generation so committed to the will of God, that no external pressure to obey would be necessary.
The family members in the middle pane seem to be looking away from the written law, listening to Jeremiah, or looking toward the God described by Isaiah.
In the bottom pane we see the stones on which the Mosaic laws were written, cast aside and replaced by the internalization of the law within the human heart.