NOTES for Jr 5:1-31

As once in Sodom, the Lord is ready to have mercy on Jerusalem if even one righteous person is found in it. But if a human voice was raised in defense of Sodom's righteous, here the Lord Himself is ready to show mercy to a city that has fallen into sin. Yet it turns out that even in sinful Sodom one righteous person was found, while in the city of David there was not a single one. The prophet denounces not only those whose wealth helps them sin on a grand scale, but also those who are poor, those who are victims of the lawlessness committed by bloated officials.

For those accustomed to thinking in purely social categories, such an approach is unacceptable: the poor, as victims of injustice, seem justified by the very fact of their crushed position. But they too react differently to the same difficult circumstances. Evil pays no attention to property divisions; it is ready to infect anyone who gives in to it. Those protesting against the injustice done to them too easily become unjust toward others.

All this will have to be answered for, but this time too the Lord warns that He will not allow the people to perish completely and will not destroy them to the end. And if it seems to us that the disasters about to fall upon sinners were excessive, let us think about the fact that by our sins we often deserve immeasurably more than what befalls us. And in the very fact that the disasters turn out to be less than they could have been, we should see the manifestation of His mercy toward us.