Moreover you shall say unto them, Thus says the LORD; Shall they fall, and not rise? shall he turn away, and not return?
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 8:4 Go To Jeremiah 8
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Is it not strange that others do not even now despair of your salvation? They instead are continually praying that they may have their member restored to them. However, while they pray, you yourself, having once fallen, are unwilling to get up again and remain prostrated. You all but cry aloud to the enemy: “Slay me, smite me, spare not.” “Does he who falls not rise up again?” so speaks the divine oracle. But you strive against this and contradict it. If one who has fallen despairs, it is as much as to say that he who falls does not rise up again. I entreat you. Do not do so great a wrong to yourself. Do not pour on us such a flood of sorrow. I do not say this merely at the present time when you have not yet completed your twentieth year. But I would entreat you, even if after achieving many things and spending your whole life in Christ, you had experienced this attack. Even then, in extreme old age, it would not have been right to despair. But call to mind the robber who was justified on the cross. The laborers who came the eleventh hour and received the wages of the whole day.
