Jeremiah 5:1-6: a reflection

1“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there is anyone who does justly, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her. 2Though they say, ‘As the LORD lives,’ surely they swear falsely.” 3O LORD, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return. 4Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the LORD’s way, nor the law of their God. 5I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. 6Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

God tells Jeremiah to search the streets of Jerusalem for even one person who does justice and seeks truth, so the city might be spared, and the searching turns up how deep the corruption runs. But the most chilling diagnosis is about their response to God's discipline: You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return. God had disciplined them, and they simply hardened themselves and refused to be corrected.

Notice the terrible condition described: a heart that refuses correction. God had struck, disciplined, sent hardship meant to turn them back, and instead of softening, they hardened, made their faces harder than rock, refused to feel it, refused to return. The discipline that was meant to correct them met a heart that would not be corrected. And a heart that will not receive correction cannot be turned back; it hardens itself past feeling.

That is a searching warning about how we respond to God's correction. When hardship comes, when conviction presses, when God is trying to turn us back from something, there are two possible responses: to soften and return, or to harden and refuse. The people of Jeremiah's day chose to harden, to make their faces like rock, and it was their ruin. Ask yourself how you respond to God's correction. Do you soften and return, or do you harden and refuse? Keep your heart soft and correctable. A heart that receives correction can be turned back; a heart that refuses it hardens past healing.

Lord, your people made their faces harder than rock and refused to take correction, and it was their ruin. Keep my own heart soft and correctable. When hardship comes or conviction presses, when you are trying to turn me back, help me not to harden and refuse, but to soften and return. Guard me from a heart that hardens past feeling. Give me a teachable, correctable heart that receives your discipline and turns back to you.