5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,
5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
5 "For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another,
5 Total nonsense! Only if you clean up your act (the way you live, the things you do), only if you do a total spring cleaning on the way you live and treat your neighbors,
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,
5 But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice;
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 7:5
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.