He calls Jerusalem Lebanon, and he calls the royal palace in Jerusalem Gilead. And there is a region in Lebanon that is called by that name, and there is also another Gilead in Israelite territory. But I think that the palace is being compared with the Gilead in Lebanon because of the impiety that they had dared to do in their midst. For this reason he threatens complete destruction on them.

Jeremiah too laments over his impenitent people, saying, O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for . . . my people!^[1] And further on he gives a reason for his lamentation: Do not weep for the dead, he writes, or bemoan him, but weep sorely for him who goes away, for he shall return no more.

Sensual persons who dwell in vaulted houses and take delight in coffered silver ceilings do not build a house like this. As they despise plain silver, so do they despise a simple dwelling place.^[1] They add to the site of their homes. They add more and more. They join one house with another, one estate with another. They dig up the ground so that the earth itself gives way for their dwelling, and, like children of the earth, they are laid up within her womb and hidden within her flesh. Plainly it was of them that Jeremiah said, Woe to them who build their house by injustice!^[2] The person who builds with justice builds not on earth but in heaven.

The apostle indicated the one who builds a house with righteousness when he said, You are a field of God, a building of God.^[1] But he also says that no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds, and so on.^[2] Therefore, through the one who taught him, the believer has Christ Jesus as a foundation. And if any person builds well, it is with gold, the teachings of truth; silver, the saving word; precious stones, a structure built from virtues. And if anyone builds in an evil way by building what is bad for Jesus—I mean wood, hay and stubble — how is he not impious? It is for him that the threat comes: Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness! The one who makes a structure up high, yet not according to reason and truth of God, does not make the upper chambers in judgment. And similarly one can also view those who teach either a true or a falsely called knowledge. Paul builds the house, the church, with righteousness, he builds the upper chambers; Timothy and Luke and those such as them, in judgment.

Since they did not imitate the piety of their ancestors though taking pride in their kinship with them—making much of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, David, Hezekiah and Josiah, men conspicuous for their virtue—for this reason the God of all rejects the arrogance of Jeconiah in these words: Even if he were a ring and were placed on my right hand, I would pull it off and hand it over to the enemy. Thus, let him not trust in his forebears’ virtue without emulating their virtue.

Someone who is in a state of ignorance is sinful and considered earth and ashes. Someone who is in a state of knowledge, being assimilated as far as possible to God, is already spiritual and thus is considered elect. Scripture calls the senseless and disobedient by the term dirt, which is clear from what Jeremiah the prophet says in reference to Joachim and his brothers: Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Inscribe this man as an outcast.^[1]