Jeremiah 4:7

"Take up your baggage and flee to Zion"; as many of you as are outside Zion, "take up your baggage and flee to Zion; hasten, do not stand still," you who are in progress hasten to the Watchtower, "for I bring evils from the north and great destruction"—of the evils brought "from the north," from the north of the adversary, as has often been said; and whoever is found not to have hastened, nor to have entered "into the walled cities," not having come to be in "the churches of God," but standing outside, he himself, being seized by the enemies, will be destroyed.

(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!

"A lion has gone up," then, "from his lair." Where? When? He is fallen below, he has gone down into the lowest parts of the earth. "A lion has gone up from his lair." You are a man, you are higher than the devil; for you are stronger than he, whatever sort you may be; he, because of his wickedness, is below. "A lion has gone up," then, "from his lair, destroying he has cut off nations"; having gone up "from his lair," from the place proper to his own punishment, "destroying he has cut off nations; he has gone forth from his place to make your land a desolation." He wishes to enter into your land, concerning which we were speaking a little while ago. He wishes to feed upon each of us. He comes, then, "to make your land a" desolation, that the lion may trample down the seeds, that he may make your land desolate. "And your cities shall be pulled down so that they are not inhabited. For these things gird yourselves with sackcloth." Since, then, a lion has gone up and a lion threatens you and wishes to destroy your land, gird yourself with sackcloth, weep and mourn, through prayers entreat God, that he may utterly destroy this lion from you and that you may not fall into his mouth. For "just as when the shepherd snatches out of the mouth of the lion two legs or a lobe of an ear"—this lion seeks to take you by the ears, so that through your greediness, casting false words upon you, he may remove you from the truth; he wishes to snatch your feet away from the truth and devour them. […]

The lion is come up from his thicket,....

To affect them the more with the greatness of the desolation that was coming, the prophet does himself bitterly lament it, and sympathize with his people in the calamities it brought upon them, and the plunge it brought them to, representing it as a reduction of the world to its first chaos,