(Verses 21, 22.) A voice was heard in the streets (or on the lips), the weeping and wailing of the children of Israel, for they have done wickedness, they have forgotten the Lord their God. Return, O returning children, and I will heal your turnings (or contritions): for which Symmachus translated as conversions. God willingly receives the penitent, and runs to meet the son who is wasted with want and filth, and immediately clothes him with the former garments, and restores glory to the one who returns: but only if he returns with weeping and wailing. For he has done wrong because of his own fault; and he has forgotten the Lord his God and his Father, to whom he speaks with prophetic words: Return, O returning sons. I call you sons for this reason, because understanding your sins, you return with weeping and wailing to your parent. And when you have returned to the Lord, he will heal all your contritions, whether aversions by which you had gone away from the Lord, or certainly conversions. Although we may return to the Lord of our own volition, yet unless He draws us and strengthens our desire with His protection, we cannot be saved. Let us understand this both in relation to the Jewish people returning to the Lord and to the heretics who have forsaken the Lord.
3:23
(Verse 23.) Behold, we come to you: for you are the Lord our God. Truly the hills were deceitful, and the multitude (or strength) of the mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. Let the penitent say this, forsaking all pride, and the multitude or height of the mountains and hills, by which he exalted himself against God, and being humbled, let him speak: Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
3:24
(Verse 24.) The confusion devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth: their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. All the labors of the heretics, of which it is written, They have failed in searching examination (Psalm 63:7), from their youth whom they deceived, their sons and daughters who progressed in heresy or were merely held captive by luxury, our confusion has overwhelmed them. From this they conclude:
3:25
(Verse 25) Let us sleep in our confusion, and let our disgrace cover us: for we have sinned against our God, both we and our fathers, from our youth until this day, and we have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God. Let Israel speak this, who has not listened to his Lord: let every heretic who repents speak this; and yet it is a part of salvation to confess one's own sins and to know them. Say, he says, your iniquities first: that you may be justified (Isaiah 43:26). For indeed Israel rejected Christ their Lord God, and sinned against Him, not only at the time when He was seen in the flesh, but even before His coming. Hence they say, both we and our fathers from our youth until this day have not heard the voice of our God speaking to our fathers: If ye believe Moses, ye would believe me also: for of me he wrote (John 5:46).
4:1
(Chapter IV, Verse 1) If you return, O Israel, says the Lord, return to me. The Septuagint translates it as: If Israel turns back, says the Lord, it will return to me. And the meaning is, if it returns to me, it will be delivered from captivity. Alternatively: when it offers what it has: For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. (Matthew 25:29). Furthermore, according to the Hebrew text, the meaning here is: If you return to me, O Israel, and once desiring salvation, you confess to having sinned and not heeded the voice of the Lord your God, fully convert and believe in the one you denied, and then there will be complete conversion.
If you remove your offenses from my face, you will not be disturbed. When we are moved and say, 'But my feet were almost ready to stumble' (Ps. 73:2), we do not suffer this because of the weakness of our nature, but because we place stumbling blocks and idols against the Lord.
4:2
(Verse 2.) And you shall swear, 'As the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless him, and they themselves shall praise him.' And how does the Gospel forbid us to swear? But here (Matt. 5), to swear is said for confession, and for the condemnation of idols, by which Israel used to swear. Finally, stumbling blocks are removed, and one swears by the Lord. And what is said, 'As the Lord lives,' in the Old Testament it is an oath for the condemnation of the dead, by whom every idol worshiper swears. At the same time, it must be noted that an oath has these companions: truth, judgment, and justice. If these are lacking, the oath will by no means be valid, but rather perjury. And when, he says, Israel does this, and through the Apostles becomes the teacher of the nations, then all nations will bless or be blessed in him, and they will praise him because salvation has come forth from Israel.
4:3-4
(Verse 3 and following.) For thus says the Lord to the man of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your thoughts (or inventions). For we have said, Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and remove the foreskins of your hearts. Symmachus adds, Purify yourselves to the Lord, and remove the evil of your hearts: understanding circumcision, purification, and the foreskins to be a vice. But this is commanded to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, who follow the true faith and dwell in the Church, that they should not sow upon the thorns which the Gospel speech signifies, which choke the seed of God, but first make the field new and uproot all the brambles, and remove the thistles, so that clean seeds may receive clean fields. This is what is said in another place: Do not cast your pearls before swine, and do not give what is holy to dogs (Matthew 7:6). For how can someone hear the word of God and conceive seeds and bear fruit, whose soul is full of the tribulations of the world? And what follows: Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your hearts. This is commanded to no one else except the man of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that they may abandon the letter that kills and follow the life-giving spirit. For if you do not do this, my wrath will go forth like fire, and it will be kindled, and there will be no one to extinguish it. Therefore he warns and predicts beforehand so that he is not compelled to act: which we confirm in the case of the Ninevites, to whom the sentence was predicted, so that they would avoid the impending wrath through repentance. However, all these things happen due to the wickedness of your (or our) thoughts or inventions. Where are those who say in their thoughts that there is no sin, when all vices, according to Gospel truth, proceed from the heart (Matthew 15)?
4:5-6
(Verse 5, 6.) Announce in Judah, and make it heard in Jerusalem, speak: blow the trumpet in the land, cry aloud, and say: Gather together, and let us enter the fortified cities. Let Judah hear this, let Jerusalem hear this, in which the confession of faith is, and in which the peace of Christ dwells, and to which it was said through Isaiah: Ascend to the high mountain, you who proclaim good news to Zion. Raise your voice, you who proclaim good news to Jerusalem (Isa. 40:9): cry aloud, and thus command: Let us enter the fortified cities. The wars of the heretics are rising: hold fast to the protection of Christ. Raise the sign of the cross on the watchtower, in the loftiness of the Church. Take courage, you who are afraid, do not stand still, but run to the aid of Christ. Evil, he says, I bring from the North and great destruction, truly it is Nebuchadnezzar, who is allowed by me to be in this world, so that your strength and victory may be proven.
4:7
(Verse 7) The lion has come up from his den, and the destroyer of the nations has risen; he has left his lair to make your land a desolation. Your cities will be laid waste, with no inhabitant remaining. This is, as we have said, the true Nebuchadnezzar, of whom the blessed Apostle Peter speaks: 'Our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour' (1 Peter 5:8). But he has also ascended from the abyss, from which he must be bound, and he pleads not to be cast out; and the plunderer or destroyer of the nations has risen, of whom it is said: 'You will rule over all your enemies' (Psalm 9:5), and 'He who boasts in the sight of the Lord: I have gone around and trampled on the whole earth' (Job 2:2). For who is it, indeed, whom the poisons of the devil do not touch, except for he alone who can say: Behold, the prince of this world is coming, and in me he has found nothing (John 14:30)? This person frequently puts the whole earth of the Church in solitude, so that those who have gone out of the Church fight against the Church. Concerning these, John the Evangelist speaks: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us (1 John 2:19). The cities of the land of Judea are being devastated, and the assemblies of heretics flourish. Therefore, if anyone is a supporter and author of perverse doctrines, it can be said: The lion has come up from his den, and the destroyer of nations has risen!
4:8
(Verse 8.) So gird yourselves with sackcloth, weep and howl, for the fierce anger of the Lord's fury has not turned away from us, or as the Septuagint translated, from you. We cannot avoid the lion and the most savage beast unless we repent and turn to the Lord, not only in our minds but also in our actions. For as long as he devastates the Church and the land of Judah, and also ravages Jerusalem, the clear anger of God is evident.
4:9
(Verse 9.) And it shall be on that day, says the Lord: the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes, and the priests shall be amazed, and the prophets shall be confounded. While the Church of the Lord is being devastated by the plunderer, and the anger of the Lord remains against us, all help will be useless. The heart of the king, whose heart should be in the hand of God, will perish, and the hearts of the princes, who were thought to be wise. For God has made the wisdom of the world foolish, because through it they did not know God (1 Corinthians 1). Even the priests themselves, who were supposed to teach the law of the Lord and defend their subjects from the fury of the lion, will be infatuated with a certain stupor. For the Septuagint translated it as 'stupor', expressing a loss of mind. And the prophets will be dismayed, or, as Aquila translated the Hebrew word 'Iethmau', they will be insane. For who would not go mad, who would not lose heart, when they see their princes, kings, priests, and prophets being devoured by the lion?
4:10
(Verse 10) And I said: Alas, alas, alas: O Lord God (which the LXX translated: O Lord God), have you deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: There will be peace for you? And behold the sword has reached to the soul. For earlier he had said: At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of God, and all nations will gather to it on the mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem; and now he says: The heart of the king and the hearts of the leaders will perish, and the priests will be astonished and the prophets will be dismayed. The Prophet is troubled and thinks that God has lied to him. He does not understand that the promise will be fulfilled in the distant future, but this will happen in the near future, as the Apostle also speaks: Has God rejected his people? But it reaches to the soul, when nothing vital is reserved in the soul. And at the same time, it shows this, that unless the sword goes before, which cuts off and purges the vices of the soul, peace and promise do not follow.
4:11-12