Jeremiah 12:11

Who is it that says, "Because of me the whole earth has been laid utterly waste"? Christ says these things, before whose coming many sins had indeed been committed by the people, but not such sins as to cause them to be utterly forsaken and handed over into a captivity of long duration. But when they had filled up "the measure of their fathers" and had added, to the killing of the prophets and the persecuting of the righteous, the slaying of "the Christ of God," then came to pass the word, "Your house is left to you." And it is because of him that they have suffered these things, and "the whole earth has been laid utterly waste." But if you wish also to hear in a loftier sense the words, "Because of me the whole earth has been laid utterly waste," look at the earth within you, in what manner it was laid waste when Jesus came; for it was laid waste "when the members that are upon the earth were put to death," and the earth no longer works its own works, no longer are there produced in the righteous person the works of the flesh in which the flesh once flourished — no longer fornication, no longer uncleanness, not licentiousness, not idolatry, not sorcery, and the rest. And the Savior too says, "Do you think that I came to cast peace upon the earth? […]

He hath made it desolate: but it cannot be meant of God, for it is God that speaketh, and God is he mentioned in the next words; it must therefore either be understood of Nebuchadnezzar, the instrumental cause; or (one number being put for another) of the people or the rulers as the meritorious cause, and in that rueful state into which their sins had brought it, it cried onto God.

An intimation of mercy to God's people, in a denunciation of wrath against their neighbours that helped forward their affliction, that they should be plucked out; but with a promise that if they would at last join themselves with the people of God they should come in sharers with them in their privileges,

): The land mourns unto me; the country that lies desolate does, as it were, pour out its complaint before God and humble itself under his hand; but the inhabitants are so senseless and stupid that none of them lays it to heart; they do not mourn to God, but are unaffected with his displeasure, while the very ground they go upon shames them.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

They have made it desolate,.... Which is repeated to denote the certainty of it; astonishment at it, and that it might be observed: and being desolate it mourneth unto me; not the inhabitants of it for their sins, the cause of this desolation; but the land itself, because of the calamities upon it; it crying to God, in its way, for a restoration to its former beauty and glory.