4 Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.
4 Again and again I sent my servants the prophets, who said, 'Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!'
4 Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, 'Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!'
4 Morning after morning and long into the night I kept after you, sending you all those prophets, my servants, begging you, "Please, please - don't do this, don't fool around in this loathsome gutter of gods that I hate with a passion."
4 However I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, "Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate!"
4 "Again and again I sent my servants, the prophets, to plead with them, 'Don't do these horrible things that I hate so much.'
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 44:4
Commentary on Jeremiah 44:1-14
(Read Jeremiah 44:1-14)
God reminds the Jews of the sins that brought desolations upon Judah. It becomes us to warn men of the danger of sin with all seriousness: Oh, do not do it! If you love God, do not, for it is provoking to him; if you love your own souls, do not, for it is destructive to them. Let conscience do this for us in the hour of temptation. The Jews whom God sent into the land of the Chaldeans, were there, by the power of God's grace, weaned from idolatry; but those who went by their own perverse will into the land of the Egyptians, were there more attached than ever to their idolatries. When we thrust ourselves without cause or call into places of temptation, it is just with God to leave us to ourselves. If we walk contrary to God, he will walk contrary to us. The most awful miseries to which men are exposed, are occasioned by the neglect of offered salvation.