3 And they bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood, and not for fidelity are they valiant in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah.
Their tongue is a murderous arrow; it speaketh deceit. [A man] speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth his ambush.
For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have no intelligence; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; asps' poison [is] under their lips:
in transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off; for truth stumbleth in the street, and uprightness cannot enter. And truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And Jehovah saw [it], and it was evil in his sight that there was no judgment.
And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
and *they* have overcome him by reason of the blood of the Lamb, and by reason of the word of their testimony, and have not loved their life even unto death.
But wicked men and juggling impostors shall advance in evil, leading and being led astray.
and not frightened in anything by the opposers, which is to them a demonstration of destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God;
in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is [the] image of God, should not shine forth [for them]. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus' sake. Because [it is] the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ.
And according as they did not think good to have God in [their] knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to practise unseemly things;
For I am not ashamed of the glad tidings; for it is God's power to salvation, to every one that believes, both to Jew first and to Greek:
Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing: it is my Father who glorifies me, [of] whom ye say, He is our God. And ye know him not; but I know him; and if I said, I know him not, I should be like you, a liar. But I know him, and I keep his word.
For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of man also be ashamed when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Fear not therefore; *ye* are better than many sparrows. Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, *I* also will confess him before my Father who is in [the] heavens. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will *I* also deny before my Father who is in [the] heavens.
Both hands are for evil, to do it well. The prince asketh, and the judge [is there] for a reward; and the great [man] uttereth his soul's greed: and [together] they combine it. The best of them is as a briar; the most upright, [worse] than a thorn-fence. The day of thy watchmen, thy visitation is come; now shall be their perplexity. Believe ye not in a companion, put not confidence in a familiar friend: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, -- they break out; and blood toucheth blood. For this shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not this to know me? saith Jehovah.
And they act deceitfully every one with his neighbour, and speak not the truth: they teach their tongue to speak falsehood, they weary themselves with perverse dealing.
For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak lies, your tongue muttereth unrighteousness: none calleth for justice, none pleadeth in truthfulness. They trust in vanity, and speak falsehood; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch serpents' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
Jehovah, deliver my soul from the lying lip, from the deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee, what shall be added unto thee, thou deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of a mighty one, with burning coals of broom-wood.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 9
Commentary on Jeremiah 9 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 9
In this chapter the prophet goes on faithfully to reprove sin and to threaten God's judgments for it, and yet bitterly to lament both, as one that neither rejoiced at iniquity nor was glad at calamities.
Jer 9:1-11
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretel the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem and to point out the sin for which that destruction was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks of both very feelingly: what he said of both came from the heart, and therefore one would have thought it would reach to the heart.
Jer 9:12-22
Two things the prophet designs, in these verses, with reference to the approaching destruction of Judah and Jerusalem:-
Jer 9:23-26
The prophet had been endeavouring to possess this people with a holy fear of God and his judgments, to convince them both of sin and wrath; but still they had recourse to some sorry subterfuge or other, under which to shelter themselves from the conviction and with which to excuse themselves in the obstinacy and carelessness. He therefore sets himself here to drive them from these refuges of lies and to show them the insufficiency of them.