Jeremiah 9:7-10a These are the Words of the Lord: I shall refine and test them. How else should I deal with My people? They speak lies and place traps for the unwary. Shall I fail to punish them for this? I will exact vengeance, and on the mountains and pastures there will be weeping and wailing. Jeremiah 3:21, Psalms 30:5
Jeremiah 9:10b-11 The Land is scorched and untrodden, not even birds or beasts remain. Jerusalem and the towns of Judah are ruined and uninhabited. Jeremiah 12:4 & 14, Hosea 4:3
Jeremiah 9:12 Who is wise enough to understand all this? Who has the Lord’s command to explain it? Why has the Land become a dead Land, burned and laid waste?
Jeremiah 9:13-20 It is because they rejected My Law, which I set before them, they neither obeyed Me or kept My Laws. They follow the promptings of their wicked hearts, as their forefathers have taught them. Therefore, I shall make them eat and drink bitterness, I will scatter them among the nations, harass and punish them there. Wail and lament, for you have left your Land and your houses are in ruins. Isaiah 10:23, Isaiah 28:21-22
The Kingdom of Israel, conquered in 720BC and finally exiled in 712 BC, then Judah in 585BC and again in 70AD. The exile of the northern 10 tribes still applies, part of the House of Judah have returned to part of the Land, but they do not fully obey the Lord, so they and all peoples, remain under the threat of punishment.
Jeremiah 9:21-22 Death has come in the windows and entered our safe places. People in the streets and squares are cut off. Corpses lie everywhere, like swaths behind the reaper, with no one left to gather them. Joel 2:9-11, Jer. 25:33, Jer. 7:32-34
This is the result of the Great Day of the Lords vengeance and wrath. A massive CME sunstrike will ‘scorch the land ‘, ‘burned and laid waste’. Underground shelters will be the only protection. This is amazingly prophesied for the Jewish remnant, in Isaiah 29:1-4.....you will speak out of the earth. Their voices will squeak ghostlike from underground.
Jeremiah 9:25-26 The time is coming, says the Lord when I shall punish all the circumcised. The Egyptians, the Jewish people, the Edomites, the Jordanians and all who live on the fringes of the desert. For all alike are [Spiritually] uncircumcised and even the whole House of Israel is really uncircumcised in their heart. Ezekiel 30:1-5, Romans 2:29
The prophesy about scattering His people among the nations has been partially fulfilled and now we await the full and final regathering back into the Promised Land. In order for that to happen, the great clearance and cleansing as prophesied here and in Zephaniah 1:14-18, Deuteronomy 32:34-43, will take place. Then the ‘scorched Land ‘ will be regenerated as in;
Ezekiel 36:8-12 But you, Land of Israel, you will grow your fruit trees and crops, for the homecoming of My people is near. I shall settle on you the whole peoples of Israel. They will be more prosperous than in days of old. Thus you will know that I am the Lord. Jeremiah 29:13-14, Ezekiel 36:36
His faithful Christian people will know the Lord by His blessings to them, not by the presence of Jesus, until His Return, to come later.
Great are the promises to His righteous Christian peoples!
Reference: REB, NIV, KJV, some verses abridged.