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The Utter Corruption of God’s People5 Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. 2 Although they say, “As the L ord lives,” yet they swear falsely. 3 O L ord, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back.
4 Then I said, “These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the L ord, the law of their God. 5 Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the L ord, the law of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.
6 Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces— because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.
7 How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. 8 They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife. 9 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
10 Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the L ord’s. 11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the L ord. 12 They have spoken falsely of the L ord, and have said, “He will do nothing. No evil will come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine.” 13 The prophets are nothing but wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!
14 Therefore thus says the L ord, the God of hosts: Because they have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them. 15 I am going to bring upon you a nation from far away, O house of Israel, says the L ord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. 16 Their quiver is like an open tomb; all of them are mighty warriors. 17 They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; they shall destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
18 But even in those days, says the L ord, I will not make a full end of you. 19And when your people say, “Why has the L ord our God done all these things to us?” you shall say to them, “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
20 Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah: 21 Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear. 22 Do you not fear me? says the L ord; Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it. 23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. 24 They do not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the L ord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.” 25 Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have deprived you of good. 26 For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. 27 Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, 28 they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. 29 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: 31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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The Prophet shews here how the people would become like straw or dry wood; for God would bring a sure calamity which they did not fear. But the context is to be here observed: the Prophet had said, that the word in his mouth would be like fire; he now transfers this to the Assyrians and Chaldeans. Now these things have the appearance of being inconsistent; but we have already shewn that all the scourges of God depended on the power of his word: when, therefore, the city was cut off by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, then the fire from the mouth of Jeremiah broke forth to destroy the city and the people. In short, Jeremiah intimates, that when the enemies came, no account was to be made of their strength nor of their forces, and that they would not bring with them any aids for the war, but that there would be the execution of what he had said, of what had proceeded from his mouth; for we shall elsewhere see that he was sent by God to besiege the city; but with what forces? He was alone and unarmed; this is true; but this siege was not understood by the wicked and reprobate, yet it was not without its effect; for as the Prophet spoke, so God executed what had proceeded from his mouth. We hence see that the Chaldeans proceeded as it were from the mouth of the Prophet, like willing enemies, who throw darts to demolish the walls of a city, who east stones and upset the walls by warlike engines, or like those who at this day use other warlike machines, by which they demolish cities. What then are all these instruments of war? They are the fire which God casts forth by the mouth of his servants; and the truth which had been declared by them, has accompanying it all those engines of war which can destroy not only one city and one people, but the whole world, when it shall so please him. I bring then upon you a nation from far We have said elsewhere why the Prophet refers to long distance, even because the Jews thought that there was no danger nigh them from nations so remote, as though we were to speak of the Turks at this day, “Oh! they have to fight with other nations: let those who are near them contend with the Turks, for we may live three or four ages in quietness.” We see such indifference prevailing in the present day. Hence the Prophet, in order to deprive the Jews of this vain confidence, says that this nation was near at hand, though coming from remote quarters. He says that they were a hard, or a strong nation, and a nation from antiquity He means not simply that it was brave through age, but that it was hard and ferocious; for he says afterwards that they were all גברים, geberim, that is, valiant. He then calls it a hard nation, because it was cruel, and he afterwards mentions the barbarity of that nation. But he says first that it was from antiquity: for it generates spirits more ferocious, when a nation has ruled for a long time, and from a period out of memory: this very antiquity is wont to inflate the minds of men with pride, and to render them more ferocious. He says then, that it was from antiquity He afterwards speaks of its barbarity: Thou wilt not, he says, understand its language, nor wilt thou hear what it speaks
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The verb שמעhere is not merely to hear, but to hear effectually, that is, so as to understand. It has this meaning in other places; see Deuteronomy 38:49; 2 Kings 18:26. The whole
verse may be thus rendered, —
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