NOTES for Jer 12:1-17
The question Jeremiah asks constantly arises for many, many people who over the centuries have watched the visible prosperity of the wicked, though, if you think about it, their prosperity is unreliable in the long run. And it is not only that the position of such people is unstable in itself, since today they are rich and tomorrow, for all anyone knows, they may be ruined; the prosperity they have achieved can also last a long time. But even the very duration of prosperity, if it is founded on sin, becomes a tense, drawn-out pause that will only underscore the inevitable collapse.
The Lord can put off the time of collapse, perhaps to give sinners time to come to their senses, or perhaps to give the innocent, like Lot leaving Sodom, the chance to get out from under the ruins in time. Yet sooner or later, what has appeared through evil and sin will receive the retribution that has grown out of the same evil and sin by which it was created. But even then sinners will still have the chance to repent and return to the Lord.