14:10
God responds to Jeremiah by telling him, or reminding him, of what the people are like. The people loved to wander, they did not wish to follow God’s ways. Indeed, they made no attempt to “restrain their feet”, to stop themselves from wandering from God’s ways. As an aside, we should make attempts to avoid wandering into sin. We should be careful with what we watch or read. We should be careful about our thoughts. We should do things that encourage us to do good, and avoid things that tend to lead us into temptation. “So the Lord does not accept them: He will now remember their wickedness”. God’s judgement, terrible as it would be, was not capricious or arbitrary. It was just. And Israel had had many warnings and much time to repent. She had not done so.
14:11,12
This is the third time that God has told Jeremiah not to pray for this people (Jer 7:16; 11:14). And the people’s fasting, crying out and making various offerings would do them no good. If Jeremiah saw them doing these things he may have been tempted to think that the people were repenting, and then prayed to God to call off the judgement. God says that even if they do these things it will do no good. Sword, famine and plague will come. Is God being unfair? Absolutely not. What was required was repentance from the heart, and God knew that such actions would only be concerned with avoiding the punishment, not about a change of their ways, not about a fundamental change of life. They would be outward actions only, and outward actions designed to appease God as though He was like the idols that the nations worshipped.
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