(Verse 22, 23.) Thus says the Lord: Behold, a people comes from the land of the north, and a great nation will rise from the ends of the earth. They will take hold of the bow and shield (or javelin); they are cruel (or shameless) and will not show mercy. Their voice will sound like the sea, and they will ride on horses, prepared like a man for battle against you, daughter of Zion. This is specifically prophesied about the Babylonians, who will come against the people of Jerusalem, and the entire order of their armament is described, as well as the attack of the fighters, so that, shaken by the terrifying sound, they may repent and please the most merciful God. Finally, the opportunity to ask arises, as it were, against you, daughter of Zion. We can use this testimony during the time of persecution, when the rage of the devil is stirred up against us, and there is no mercy: and like the most violent waves of the sea, they overwhelm those who resist.
6:24
(Verse 24.) We have heard his fame: our hands are weak; distress has seized us, like the pain of childbirth. The people responded to the Prophet, or rather, through the Prophet, the Lord has threatened the Babylonians: before they come, they will be overcome with fear, unable to lift their hands, and distress will grip them like the pain of childbirth; in this pain, they affirm that nothing is more severe than what they have experienced.
6:25
(Verse 25.) Do not go out to the fields, and do not walk on the road, for the sword of the enemy is all around. The Gospel teaches (Matthew 24) that we should not go out into the field or descend from the height of roofs, but rather listen to this: 'Escape to the mountain to be saved' (Genesis 19:17). We are instructed in Isaiah and Micah (Isaiah 2, Micah 4) to run to and climb to this mountain. According to the literal meaning, we are commanded not to go outside or leave the walls, but to protect ourselves with strong fortifications.
6:26
(Verse 26) Daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth and sprinkle yourself with ashes, mourn for the only begotten (or beloved), make for yourself a bitter lament (or miserable), because the devastator (or misery) will come suddenly upon us (or upon you). For he had said before: Do not go out to the fields and do not walk along the road, for the sword of the enemy, panic is all around; and he had also forbidden flight, he teaches what they should do, namely, to repent, and to have this most firm and secure armor. When we say 'luctum unigeniti', it means 'mourning for the only child', which in Hebrew is written as 'Jaid', which sounds more lonely than 'unigenitum'. If it were 'dilectus' or 'amabilis', as the Septuagint translated it, it would have been written as 'Idid', which God also named Solomon. But there is nothing more painful than losing one's only son (II Reg. XII). Also, the phrase we interpreted as 'the devastator will come suddenly', or 'misery will come upon us', the Septuagint translated as 'upon you', but God has said with much more mercy that whatever is to come upon his people, he also testifies will come upon himself. Vastator properly signifies either Nabuchodonosor or the devil.
6:27-30
(Verse 27 and following) I have appointed you as a strong tester among my people, and you will know and prove their ways. All these leaders are turning away (or disobedient), walking deceitfully (or perversely). Bronze and iron are all corrupted, the bellows in the fire have failed (which the Greeks more significantly call a 'puffer'), the lead is consumed, the refiner has vainly blown (or the moneylender). For their wickedness is not consumed: call them reprobate silver, for the Lord has rejected them. The prophet is given as a strong proof to an unbelieving people, which is called Mabsar in Hebrew, which either means fortified, according to Aquila, or enclosed and surrounded, according to Symmachus and the Septuagint, like a very strong city, so that it fears no treachery from any people; and when you have proven and understood the way of a sinful people, then you will understand that silver mixed with copper cannot be purged in any way. For just as lead is mixed with metals that are adulterated and corrupted, so that the foreign material can be separated, and if perhaps it has not been purified, all the lead is consumed and reduced to nothing: in the same way, every discourse of teachings and prophetic speech perishes in those who scorn to listen (Psalm 57). Let us speak also about those who, like deaf asps, plug their ears so as not to hear the voices of those who enchant. For the mint worker and the metal smelter have labored in vain: their wickedness has not been consumed. Therefore, they are called not silver, but reprobate silver, because the Lord has rejected them. And the princes are those who turn away from the Lord, who walk perversely and deceitfully.
7:1-2
(Chapter 7, Verses 1-2) The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim (or read) there this word, and say: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter in through these gates to worship the Lord. This is not found in the LXX edition, but is added from Theodotion's translation from Hebrew. The Prophet is commanded to stand in the gate of the Lord, through which the multitude of the people enters to worship the Lord, so that they may hear what the Lord commands. By which we understand the hardness of the Jewish people, because they regarded the prophets as liars and madmen, while they were compelled by the opportunity and the fame of the place to hear the words of the Lord; and not because the words were from the Lord.
7:3
(Verse 3.) Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make (or direct) your ways and your pursuits (or inventions) good, and I will dwell with you in this place (or make you dwell in this place). The most merciful physician desires to heal all those wounded with medicine. For when he says, 'Make (or correct) your ways good,' he shows that they are perverse and have no good in themselves. And because it is natural for each person to love their homeland alone and have nothing sweeter, rewards are promised to the obedient. 'I will dwell with you,' he says, 'to make you secure in your habitation': either I will establish a stable dwelling for you yourselves, according to Symmachus, who says, 'And I will strengthen you in this place.'
7:4-7
(Verse 4 and following) Do not trust in deceitful words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord is here. For if you will bless (or direct) your ways and your pursuits, if you will administer justice between a man and his neighbor (or his), if you will not commit injustice (or oppress them) against strangers, orphans, and widows, if you will not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you will not walk after foreign gods to your own harm; then I will dwell with you (or make you dwell) in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers from the age to age. What the Seventy added to the beginning of this chapter: 'In words of falsehood, which will not benefit you at all,' is not found in the Hebrew. And at that time he commanded both the people of Judah and us who seem to be established in the Church, not to place our trust in the splendor of buildings, in gilded ceilings, and in walls adorned with marble crusts. And let us not say, 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.' For that is the temple of the Lord, in which true faith dwells, holy conversation, and the chorus of all virtues. Finally, it brings forth: If you walk in the right paths, and your thoughts do not stray after error, and if you follow justice and do not commit evil, nor shed innocent blood, nor cause the simple to stumble, and if you do not walk after foreign gods and worship perverse doctrines, which you have imagined in your hearts for your own harm; then I will dwell with you in this place, which you call the Temple of God, and in the land that I have given to your fathers, to the Apostles, namely, and to the Apostolic men; or certainly I will make you dwell securely from the beginning to the end. This can apply to those virgins who boast of their chastity and present their chastity with an impudent countenance, when their conscience holds something else and they do not understand the Apostle's definition of virginity: that it should be holy in body and spirit. For what good is the chastity of the body to a mind corrupted, if it does not possess the other virtues described by the prophetic discourse?
7:8-10
(Verse 8 and following) Behold, you trust in yourselves with words of falsehood (or lies) which have not benefited you. To steal, to kill, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer sacrifices to Baal, and to follow foreign gods that you do not know. And you have come and stood before me in this house, in which my name is invoked, and you have said: We are delivered (or we have ceased): because we have done all these abominations. They vainly have confidence in the temple, as the following sins show. For what profit is it to boldly enter the threshold of God's house, standing with erect neck: and not only to have a polluted heart, but also hands defiled with theft, homicide, adultery, perjury, sacrilege, and worship of those gods whom you do not know? No one doubts that these things happen spiritually in the Church, when considering the happiness of the present time, they do not consider their own sins: and they think that God is hidden, because punishment does not immediately follow; rather, they break forth into such madness, that they think themselves freed, because they have also turned away from the worship of the Lord after evil deeds.
7:11
(Verse 11.) Has this house (or mine) become a den of thieves, as it is written (Vulg. Therefore), in which my name has been invoked in your eyes? I, I am: I have seen, says the Lord. I think this is taken from the Gospel: It is written: My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13); or, as it is written in another Gospel, a house of trade (John 2:16). The Church of God turns into a den of thieves, when thefts, homicides, adulteries, sacrileges, perjuries, the invention of heresies, and all those crimes are committed within it: when the princes are inflamed with the torches of greed, and the once riches of kings possess a cheap or certainly not costly cloak. From this it follows: I, I am, I have seen, says the Lord. My eyes have seen what you think is hidden: the darkness of treasures does not escape my consciousness. He who was rich became poor for us, now he blushes at our wealth (I Cor. VIII), and says: Woe to you, the wealthy, who have your consolation (Luke VI).
7:12
(Verse 12.) Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name dwelt from the beginning, and see what I have done to it because of the evil of my people Israel. The present teaches from the past: and to those who say, 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,' and who rejoice in the splendor of the precious house, Shiloh, where the tabernacle of God was first, recalls a history, about which it is written in the psalm: 'And he rejected the tabernacle of Shiloh' (Psalm 78:60). Just as that place collapsed into ruins and ashes, so too shall the Temple collapse, since it was a dwelling place of similar sins. Therefore, just as the destruction of the Temple serves as an example for us, so too shall the Temple, when the time comes for that prophecy to be fulfilled: Do you think, when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8)
7:13-15
(Verse 13 onwards) And now because you have done all these works, says the Lord: and I spoke to you rising up early and speaking, and you did not hear: and I called you, and you did not answer: I will do to this house, where my name has been invoked, and in which you have trusted, and to the place which I have given to you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh: and I will cast you away from my face, just as I cast away all your brothers, the entire offspring of Ephraim (also called Israel). This, which we have set forth, is not found in the Septuagint when one rises in the morning and speaks. However, God rises in the morning, not because there is any time without dawn for Him, but so that after the rest of the night, with the strength of the body restored, the soul of man may be more lively and not occupied by pleasures and the desire for food, and may be able to hear and do what is said. Therefore, we also read this in the psalm: In the morning, you will hear my voice; in the morning, I will stand before you and see (Psalm 5:4-5). And in Isaiah: By night, or at daybreak, my spirit will rise up to you, O God: for your commandments are a light upon the earth (Isaiah 26). Therefore, Paul the apostle also calls the sons of light (Ephesians 5), and not of the night or darkness, nor of those who sleep, as the rest do, who do not perceive the commandments of God. Because God called them, rising up from the night, in order to deliver them from darkness, he threatens to do similar things to them as he did to the Temple in Jerusalem, which he made in the place of Shiloh, where the tabernacle first was: so that similar sins may be punished with the same verdict. And how the Lord rejected the seed of Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes which were called Israel, and had princes because of Jeroboam the son of Nebat from the tribe of Ephraim, which was also called the tribe of Joseph; so also Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah with Benjamin testify that they will be rejected. He rejected Shiloh, intending to reject the Temple as well: he rejected the ten tribes, intending to reject the two as well. Whatever is said to that people, let us understand it also of ourselves, if we do similar things.
7:16
(Verse 16.) Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor take on their praise and prayer (or do not ask to obtain mercy for them). And do not resist me, for I will not listen to you. So that it may not seem that the Prophet does not obtain what he asks for, God commands that he not pray for the sinful people who do not repent. And when he says, 'And do not resist me,' he shows that the prayers of the saints can resist God's wrath. And the Lord spoke to Moses: Let me alone, that I may destroy this people: and I will make thee into a great nation (Exod. XXXII, 10). And in the psalms it is written: And Phinehas stood up and appeased him, and the shaking ceased, and it was counted to him for justice (Psal. CV, 30). And Aaron, having taken the censer, stood in the midst between the living and the dead, and the wrath of God ceased. And lest we think that God is cruel, who does not even allow himself to be asked, he gives reasons why he does not listen (Num. XVI), saying: