Dark days ahead

 Jeremiah 9:11–14 (NRSV)

11I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.
12Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
13And the LORD says: Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in accordance with it,
14but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.

Jeremiah had very strong words of the disaster that would soon befall the people of Judah. Their land would be ruined, their cities destroyed without people to live in them. Their punishment was a consequence of their forsaking the laws of God and following after Baal, the god of the heathen nations. God is righteous and just in all of his ways. He does not act in judgment without reason or justification. Truly the heart of man is deceitfully wicked and easily convinced that his own ways are better than God's ways. The laws God had given the nation were for their good and would separate them from the practices of the heathen nations. Following God's laws would produce peace and prosperity. God would be glorified in their obedience. Yet the people would not obey and made choices that brought about the horrible punishment that was predicted by Jeremiah. How difficult it must have been for him to declare the future to the people and not see them repent. His heart was broken as he knew exactly what was going to happen and the unwanted changes that would be experienced in the captivity of the nation. The nation would lose everything God had given them and lives would be taken by the invasion of the Babylonian forces.