NOTES for Jer 5:1-31
Catastrophe is coming upon the people of Judah not so much as punishment for certain specific sins, but because in this country, called to be the place of God's presence on earth, there is simply no room left for Him. The point is not that the inhabitants of Jerusalem became some kind of dreadful villains, but that God simply became uninteresting to them. Everyone found other interests: the poor had to work, the rich had to feast, the prophets had to prophesy, the priests had to offer sacrifices... and God had nothing to do with it. And this is more terrible than any sin. Sin can be forgiven, at times corrected, and one can try somehow to find a way out of the situation; but when people forget God, forgiveness and sacrifice and prophecy lose their meaning. And when meaning disappears, death comes, the most meaningless thing in the world.