And it came to pass through the lightness of her harlotry, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with trees.
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 3:9 Go To Jeremiah 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
These two indeed are chief sins, engendered by violent lusts, the one of sexual desire, the other of the desire of money. Hear what God said to Jerusalem, “I said, after she had committed all these prostitutions, she will return to me, and she did not return.” When we have come back to the earnest love of God, he remembers not the former things. God is not as people. He reproaches us not with the past, neither does he say, when we repent, “Why were you absent for so long a time?” Only let us approach him as we ought. Let us cleave to him earnestly and rivet our hearts to his fear.…
How many other such changes would you see, both to have taken place back then and now taking place every day? For this reason I say, “Neither let him on the cross despair, nor let him in the church be confident.” For to this last it is said, “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” And to the other, “Shall not he that falls arise?” And, “Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees.” Again, to these he said, “Watch”; but to those, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead.” These need to preserve what they have, and those to become what they are not. These need to preserve their health, those to be delivered from their infirmity, for they are sick. But many even of the sick become healthy, and of the healthy many, in being remiss, get sick.
