15 Only be certain that, if you put me to death, you will make yourselves and your town and its people responsible for the blood of one who has done no wrong: for truly, the Lord has sent me to you to say all these words in your ears.
If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country, and to the child without a father, and to the widow, and do not put the upright to death in this place, or go after other gods, causing damage to yourselves:
Eyes of pride, a false tongue, hands which take life without cause;
If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the blood of the prophets. So that you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of those who put the prophets to death. Make full, then, the measure of your fathers. You snakes, offspring of snakes, how will you be kept from the punishment of hell? For this reason, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them you will put to death and put on the cross, and to some of them you will give blows in your Synagogues, driving them from town to town; So that on you may come all the blood of the upright on the earth, from the blood of upright Abel to the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom you put to death between the Temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, All these things will come on this generation.
For they made the blood of saints and prophets come out like a stream, and blood have you given them for drink; which is their right reward.
Who put to death the Lord Jesus and the prophets, violently driving us out; who are unpleasing to God and against all men; Who, to make the measure of their sins complete, kept us from giving the word of salvation to the Gentiles: but the wrath of God is about to come on them in the fullest degree.
And going down on his knees, he said in a loud voice, Lord, do not make them responsible for this sin. And when he had said this, he went to his rest.
And Judas, who was false to him, made answer and said, Is it I, Master? He says to him, Yes.
And he said, What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the earth.
But your eyes and your heart are fixed only on profit for yourself, on causing the death of him who has done no wrong, and on violent and cruel acts.
This is what the Lord has said: Do what is right, judging uprightly, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away: do no wrong and be not violent to the man from a strange country and the child without a father and the widow, and let not those who have done no wrong be put to death in this place.
And in the skirts of your robe may be seen the life-blood of those who have done no wrong: ...
I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.
So that in all your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, no man may be wrongly put to death, for which you will be responsible.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 26
Commentary on Jeremiah 26 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 26
As in the history of the Acts of the Apostles that of their preaching and that of their suffering are interwoven, so it is in the account we have of the prophet Jeremiah; witness this chapter, where we are told,
Jer 26:1-6
We have here the sermon that Jeremiah preached, which gave such offence that he was in danger of losing his life for it. It is here left upon record, as it were, by way of appeal to the judgment of impartial men in all ages, whether Jeremiah was worthy to die for delivering such a message as this from God, and whether his persecutors were not very wicked and unreasonable men.
Jer 26:7-15
One would have hoped that such a sermon as that in the foregoing verses, so plain and practical, so rational and pathetic, and delivered in God's name, would work upon even this people, especially meeting them now at their devotions, and would prevail with them to repent and reform; but, instead of awakening their convictions, it did but exasperate their corruptions, as appears by this account of the effect of it.
Jer 26:16-24
Here is,