Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
⛓ Read Jeremiah 1 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion4
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Paul defines his Lord-given authority as 'for building you up, and not for casting you down,' directly drawing on Jeremiah's commission 'to build and to plant' over against 'to break down... and to overthrow.' The build-up/tear-down polarity is distinctively Jeremianic and recurs across Jeremiah, giving high volume and coherence.
High confidenceJeremiah's commission pairs the verbs to build and to plant (and to pluck up and break down) as the dual metaphor for God's work through the prophet. Paul fuses exactly these two figures in 3:9 ('God's farming, God's building'), suggesting dependence on the prophetic building-and-planting idiom. The recurrence of this paired metaphor in Jeremiah (1:10; 24:6; 31:28) makes the echo coherent.
Medium confidenceJeremiah's commission 'to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant' frames prophetic authority as power to demolish and to build — the same dual structure Paul invokes (here the destroying side; the building side surfaces in 10:8). Coherence with Paul's apostolic self-understanding is strong, though the destroying half is generic.
Medium confidence'I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms' supplies the universal scope ('many peoples, nations... and kings') of the renewed prophetic commission in v.11. Coheres with Jeremiah's call narrative.
Medium confidenceEcho3
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'If I build up again those things which I destroyed' (v.18) employs the prophetic pairing of tearing down and building up (Jeremiah's commission 'to break down... and to build'). The imagery is suggestive but the building/destroying word-pair is widespread, so the echo is faint and contested.
Low confidenceProphetic commission 'to pluck up and to plant' — the plucking/planting polarity Jesus invokes in 15:13.
Low confidenceThe build-up vs. tear-down language ('build one another up,' 14:19; 'don't overthrow God's work,' 14:20, katalye) resonates with the Jeremianic commission to 'pluck up and break down... to build and to plant' (Jeremiah 1:10). The oikodomē/kataluō opposition is a recurring prophetic idiom for God's constructive work among his people.
Low confidence