Jeremiah 5:10-19

The Coming of the Foe. Let the enemy, therefore, destroy the vineyard of Judah, for of its owner Judah has said, He does nothing, rejecting His warnings by (true) prophets. The word they have rejected now becomes a fire to consume (cf. Jeremiah 23:29; ancient thought attached great power to the spoken word). The enemy (Scythians or, later, Babylonians) comes to destroy, being enduring (mg.), foreign in speech (Isaiah 28:11), and a nation of warriors (mighty men), whose arrows do not miss (Jeremiah 5:16). Heathenism at home shall bring exile abroad (Jeremiah 5:19).

Jeremiah 5:10. walls should probably be vine-rows; for the figure, cf. Jeremiah 2:21).

Jeremiah 5:12. It is not he: lit. not he; cf. Zephaniah 1:12, end.

Jeremiah 5:18, like many similar remarks, seems to be a later insertion, meant to qualify the rigour of the destruction in Jeremiah 5:17.