2 Who doth give me in a wilderness A lodging-place of travellers? And I leave my people, and go from them, For all of them 'are' adulterers, An assembly of treacherous ones. 3 And they bend their tongue, their bow 'is' a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah! 4 Each of his friend—beware ye, And on any brother, do not trust, For every brother doth utterly supplant, For every friend slanderously doth walk, 5 And each at his friend they mock, And truth they do not speak, They taught their tongue to speak falsehood, To commit iniquity they have laboured. 6 thy dwelling 'is' in the midst of deceit, Through deceit they refused to know Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 9:2-6
Commentary on Jeremiah 9:1-11
(Read Jeremiah 9:1-11)
Jeremiah wept much, yet wished he could weep more, that he might rouse the people to a due sense of the hand of God. But even the desert, without communion with God, through Christ Jesus, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, must be a place for temptation and evil; while, with these blessings, we may live in holiness in crowded cities. The people accustomed their tongues to lies. So false were they, that a brother could not be trusted. In trading and bargaining they said any thing for their own advantage, though they knew it to be false. But God marked their sin. Where no knowledge of God is, what good can be expected? He has many ways of turning a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein.