11 And now, speak, I pray thee, unto men of Judah, And against inhabitants of Jerusalem, Saying: Thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am framing against you evil, And devising against you a device, Turn back, I pray you, each from his evil way And amen your ways and your doings. 12 And they have said, It is incurable, For after our own devices we do go, And each the stubbornness of his evil heart we do. 13 Therefore, thus said Jehovah: Ask, I pray you, among the nations, Who hath heard like these? A very horrible thing hath the virgin of Israel done. 14 Doth snow of Lebanon Cease from the rock of the field? Failed are the cold strange waters that flow? 15 But My people have forgotten Me, to a vain thing they make perfume, And they cause them to stumble in their ways—paths of old, To walk in paths—a way not raised up, 16 To make their land become a desolation, A hissing age-during, Every passer by it is astonished, And bemoaneth with his head. 17 As an east wind I scatter them before an enemy, The neck, and not the face, I shew them, In the day of their calamity.'
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 18:11-17
Commentary on Jeremiah 18:11-17
(Read Jeremiah 18:11-17)
Sinners call it liberty to live at large; whereas for a man to be a slave to his lusts, is the very worst slavery. They forsook God for idols. When men are parched with heat, and meet with cooling, refreshing streams, they use them. In these things men will not leave a certainty for an uncertainty; but Israel left the ancient paths appointed by the Divine law. They walked not in the highway, in which they might travel safely, but in a way in which they must stumble: such was the way of idolatry, and such is the way of iniquity. This made their land desolate, and themselves miserable. Calamities may be borne, if God smile upon us when under them; but if he is displeased, and refuses his help, we are undone. Multitudes forget the Lord and his Christ, and wander from the ancient paths, to walk in ways of their own devising. But what will they do in the day of judgment!