Who is the word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah or to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or anyone except the one in the beginning with God?^[1] I do not know any word of the Lord other than the one about which the Evangelist spoke. . . . And I could say that Christ was with Moses, with Jeremiah, with Isaiah, with each of the righteous. . . . How can they have spoken the word of God if the Word of God did not dwell in them? But these things must be understood especially with respect to us of the church, who want the God of the law and the gospel to be the same, Christ to be the same both then and now and for all of the ages. For there will be those who will cut in two, in their opinion, the divinity previous to the dwelling of the Savior and the divinity proclaimed by Jesus Christ, but we know one God both then and now, one Christ both then and now.

Who hears the words of the covenant that God commanded to the ancestors? Is it those who believe in him, or is it those who have proven that they do not believe Moses from their having not believed in the Lord? For the Savior said to them, If you believe in Moses, you would have believed in me. For he wrote about me. But if you do not believe in what he wrote, how can you believe in my words?^[1] And so they have not believed in Moses, but we who believe in Christ believe in the covenant through Moses, and it is said to us, lest we become accursed, Cursed is the one who does not hear the words of the covenant, which I commanded to the ancestors.

Not everyone who says they are a people of God is a people of God. These people who were proclaimed to be the people of God heard it said to them, You are not my people.^[1]. . . For they have provoked me to jealousy with what is not God, . . . they have provoked me with their idols. So I will provoke them to jealousy with those who are not a people.^[2]

We were thus made into a people for God. The righteousness of God was proclaimed to the people who will be born, to a people from the pagan nations. For this people is born suddenly, yet in the prophet it also is said, Has a nation been born all at once? But a nation was born all at once when the Savior dwelled among them, and five thousand believed in one day, and three thousand were added in another day, and we see that a whole people is born to the Word of God, and it is said to the barren woman who suddenly bears, who formerly could not give birth before: Be glad, O barren woman who did not bear, break forth and cry in joy you who have not had birth pains, for the children of the deserted woman are much more than she who has a husband. She was deserted from the law, deserted from God, but that synagogue is spoken of as one who has the law as a husband. What then does God promise me? You will be my people, and I will be your God. He is the God of none except those whom he favors, as he favors the patriarch to whom he said, I am your God, and again to another, I will be your God, and for others, I will be their God.

Not only did God send Jeremiah into Egypt, but also Ezekiel into Babylon. They did not refuse to go. When they found their Master loved the people exceedingly, they continued themselves to do so as well. It is as if a right-minded servant were to take compassion on an intractable son when he saw the father grieving and lamenting about him. What was there that they did not suffer for them? They were sawn asunder, they were driven out, they were reproached, they were stoned, and they underwent numberless grievances. After all of this, they would run back to them. . . . For the people of the Jews, Jeremiah has composed Lamentations in writing. And when the general of the Persians had given him liberty to dwell securely and with perfect freedom, wherever he pleased, he preferred the affliction of the people and their hard endurance in a strange land above living at home.

When he was giving the law, he added this to the law, for he said, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things written in the book of the law, to do them, and he also promises there and again here how he will deem worthy of all care those who keep the divine commandments. And he reminds them also of the things spoken to their ancestors and of their ancestors’ disobedience. For they turned their ear away, he says, and every one went in the direction of his own evil heart. And he says here direction not as meaning uprightness but rather the evil that arises immediately in their malice. For they have not turned from this evil but have journeyed constantly in it. And I brought on them all the words of this covenant that I commanded them to do, and yet they did not do. He gave them over to noteworthy punishments; sometimes they served the Ammonites, other times the Moabites and still other times other foreigners. . . .

The phrase a band has been found means they have banded themselves together and joined themselves with their ancestors and they travel down the road of their ancestors’ wickedness. He indicates as much also through the things that are brought against them. And behold, they go after foreign gods, in order to serve them. They do these things in transgression of the covenant that was given to them. For this reason I will surround them with misfortunes of all kinds, and those who weep I will not deem worthy to be spared. They will not even enjoy any help from the gods who are revered by them.

Do we intend to repent for the sin mentioned concerning the people of Judah, since we know that we are the people of Judah because of Christ, who was prophesied and called Judah? For perhaps it is because there are some sinners among us who act contrary to right reason that the prophet says, A conspiracy^[1] was found among the people of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. For whenever a conspiracy of unrighteousness and a conspiracy to commit sin was found in any who in name come from the church—with the result that one can apply to the sinner the statement that each is caught in the snares of his sins—God could say, A conspiracy was found in the people of Judah. But may no conspiracy be found in us.

Though God justly does not hear those who do not hear him, the demons will be unable to save the just in those who burn incense to them, whenever the time of troubles arrives. Thus, whenever God does not listen, it is dangerous to seek help from demons. But one must depend on God, who has turned away from us due to sins, yet who does not disregard the great and lasting refuge in himself.

They ask for a mercy it is impossible for them to receive since they have sins for which they have not repented. They cannot receive this mercy—not if they ask for it themselves, or even if the request is made by others who are stronger in their relationship with God. When Jeremiah was praying for the Jews, the Lord in fact said, Do not pray for this people, because I will not hear you.

Why do not Christians obtain all things in prayer? Because they fail for many causes. They often ask things inexpedient. Why are you surprised, if this is the case with some, when even Paul heard: My grace is sufficient for you, because my strength is perfected in weakness^[1] . . . What if they pray against people who have hurt them, seeking for compensation and vengeance? This kind of thing is forbidden, for, pray, he said, for your enemies. . . . To Jeremiah he also said, Do not pray for this people, for I will not hear you, not wishing to stop Jeremiah from praying (for he earnestly longs for our salvation) but to terrify them. Thus the prophet, seeing this, did not cease praying.

It is probable, therefore, that Jesus compares the synagogue of the Jews with a fig tree, for the sacred Scripture also compares them with various plants: the vine, for instance, and the olive, and even a forest.^[1]. . . Jeremiah says, The Lord called you a beautiful olive tree, well shaded in appearance. At its pruning time, a fire was kindled in it. Great tribulation came to it. Its branches were destroyed. And another of the holy prophets, comparing it with Mount Lebanon, thus speaks: Open your doors, O Lebanon, and the fire shall devour your cedars.^[2] For the forest that was in Jerusalem, even the people there, many as they were and innumerable, were destroyed as by fire.

It is the consensus of all the church that these words are spoken by Christ through the person of Jeremiah. For the Father made it known to him how he should speak and revealed to him the zealotry^[1] of the Jews—he who was led like a lamb to the slaughter, not opening his mouth and not knowing.^[2] But the word sin is implicitly added to this last phrase, in agreement with what was said by the apostle: When he did not know sin, he was made to be sin on our account.^[3] And they said, Let us put wood on his bread,^[4] clearly referring to the cross on the body of the Savior, for he is the one who said, I am the bread that descended from heaven.^[5]

They also said let us destroy (or eradicate) him from the land of the living. And they conceived the evil in their soul that they would delete his name forever. In response to this, from the sacrament of the assumed body, the Son speaks to the Father and invokes his judgment while praising his justice and acknowledging him as the God who inspects the interior and the heart.^[6] He asks that the Father would return to the people what they deserve, saying, Let me see your vengeance on them, obviously referring only to those who continue in sin, not to those who repent. Concerning the latter, he said on the cross: Father forgive them, for they do not realize what they are doing.^[7] He also disclosed his cause to the Father, that he was crucified not because he deserved it but for the sins of the people, as he declared: Behold, the prince of the world came and found nothing against me.^[8] The Jews and our Judaizers believe that all of this was said only by Jeremiah, arguing from prophecy that the people have sustained these evils in their captivity. But I fail to see how they hope to prove that Jeremiah was the one crucified, since such an event is nowhere recorded in Scripture. Perhaps it is just a figment of their imagination.

Listen to Jeremiah and be convinced: I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim. Did I not know it?^[1] (Read it thus as a question, as I have put it. For he who said, You know that after two days the Passover shall be here, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified,^[2] did he not know?) I was a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim. Did I not know it? (What sort of lamb? Let John the Baptist interpret, when he says, Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!^[3]) They devised a wicked counsel against me, saying (Was it that he who knew the counsels did not know their result? And what did they say?): Come, and let us put wood on his bread.^[4] (If the Lord shall count you worthy, hereafter you shall learn that his body, according to the Gospel, bore the figure of bread.) Come, and let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living (Life is not cut off. Why do you toil to no purpose?) And let his name be remembered no more.^[5]

In Jeremiah, too, he likens himself to a lamb, as thus: I was as a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. These and other similar sayings he applies to himself.

If we examine the declaration about Jesus who is pointed out by John in the words, This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,^[1] from the standpoint of the dispensation itself of the bodily sojourn of the Son of God in the life of people, we will assume that the lamb is none other than his humanity. For he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before its shearer,^[2] saying, I was as an innocent lamb being led to be sacrificed.

Jeremiah, too, said, Show me, O Lord, and I shall know. Then I saw their plots. And I was carried as a meek lamb to be the victim. They devised counsels against me, saying, ‘Let us put wood on his bread and cut him off from the land of the living, and his name shall be remembered no more.’ ^[1] Now the wood signifies the cross and the bread his body, because he is himself the food and life of all who believe in the flesh that he put on and by which he hung on the cross.

That the Jews would fasten Christ to the cross. . . . Also in Jeremiah: Come, let us cast the tree into his bread, and let us blot out his life from the earth.^[1] TO QUIRINUS:

He was led to the cross, and the life of the whole world hung suspended from its wood. Would you care to have this, too, confirmed by the testimony of prophets? Listen to what Jeremiah has to say about it: Come, and let us put wood on his bread, and let us cut him off from the land of the living.^[1] Moses again, lamenting over them, remarked, And your life shall be hanging suspended before your eyes, and you shall fear by day and by night, neither shall you trust your life.^[2]

Hence they rightly believed and confessed that as God he knew all things and that as the Son of God He had come from God. It is a clear indication of divinity to know the secret things of another’s thoughts, as Solomon affirmed when he said in supplication to God, For you alone know the hearts of all the children of human beings.^[1] Hence, Jeremiah too said, You, O Lord of Sabaoth, are the one who judges righteously and probes the loins and hearts of human beings.

There was a reason that God allowed the prophet to be tested by troubles. Since Jeremiah had often tried to offer intercession for the transgressors—in his desire to convince Jeremiah that God was not compassionate but the harsh treasury of goodness—he allowed the rebellion to occur. In his deep grief, however, Jeremiah implores God to judge justly and exact penalties from the unholy. The Lord accepts his petition, gives a reply, threatens punishment and notes that some will be slaughtered in war and others destroyed by famine.

For Anathoth did not receive Jeremiah, or the Tishbites Elijah, or Abelmeholah Elisha, or Ramah Samuel,^[1] or the synagogue Moses, or Israel our Lord Jesus in Nazareth.