Jeremiah 5:4

"Well-off" refers to the priests and the teachers of the law; "poor" refers to the rest, insofar as they did not possess the wealth of divine knowledge. Yet he accuses both of lawlessness, proceeding in this way, "They all alike broke the yoke, they snapped …

Truly, slander humiliates a person, and slander troubles the poor person. The evil of slander is so great that it brings down both the perfect person … from his height, and the poor person, that is, the one who lacks great learning, as it seems to the prophet, who says, "Perhaps they are poor … therefore they will not hear. I will go to the great ones," meaning by "the poor" those lacking in intelligence, and here, of course, those not yet made orderly in the inner person or having attained to the perfect measure of their age. These, the proverb says, are troubled and made to waver.

Paul says about those who live in piety and prosperity, "I thank God that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge." And to those who are impious, the blessed Jeremiah says, "Maybe they are poor. For this reason, they could not hear the word of the Lord." Do you see that he calls poor those who have distanced themselves from piety? Therefore, God is merciful to those who sin because they are spiritually poor, and he places demands on those who act justly because they are spiritually rich. To the former he gives freely, on account of their poverty. From the latter he collects with great care, on account of their wealth of piety. That which he does to the righteous and to sinners, he does to both the rich and the poor.

"They made their faces harder than rock." This too you will understand from things more bodily. Of those who sin, some, hearing words of rebuke over their sin, blush and shrink back and give way, when the rebuking word touches them; but others are of such a kind that they are shameless, feeling no shame over the things for which they are rebuked, for the things in which they have sinned. You might therefore say concerning these who feel no shame, "They made their faces harder than rock." If you have understood this in bodily terms, pass over with me in thought to the soul, understanding the "face" concerning which it is said, "but then face to face." And behold a hardened soul, such as was the hardened heart of Pharaoh, so that it stands unyielding against the things announced to it and, as it were, casts off what is said, not being molded according to the things announced. For there you will find that the words fit, "They made their faces harder than rock, and they refused to turn back. And I said, Perhaps they are poor, because they did not wish to know the way of the Lord and the judgment of God. I will go to the great ones and speak to them." Having understood these things concerning those who do not wish to be instructed, who take no notice of God's scourges, he speaks having understood the cause of these things. Poor is their soul. "And I said, Perhaps they are poor, because they were not able, because they did not know the way of the Lord and the judgment of God."

Then I said, surely these are poor, they are foolish,....