5 For if your ways and your doings are truly changed for the better; if you truly give right decisions between a man and his neighbour; 6 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: 7 Then I will let you go on living in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers in the past and for ever.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 7:5-7
Commentary on Jeremiah 7:1-16
(Read Jeremiah 7:1-16)
No observances, professions, or supposed revelations, will profit, if men do not amend their ways and their doings. None can claim an interest in free salvation, who allow themselves in the practice of known sin, or live in the neglect of known duty. They thought that the temple they profaned would be their protection. But all who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, make Christ the minister of sin; and the cross of Christ, rightly understood, forms the most effectual remedy to such poisonous sentiments. The Son of God gave himself for our transgressions, to show the excellence of the Divine law, and the evil of sin. Never let us think we may do wickedness without suffering for it.