For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.
The land is full of people who are unfaithful; because of their cursing and broken promises, the land grieves. The beautiful places in the wilderness have dried up, their way of life is evil, and they use their power wrongly.
The writer is saying that widespread unfaithfulness and corruption have brought judgment and desolation upon the land itself.
📚 Historical Context
Jeremiah prophesied during the final decades before Jerusalem's destruction in 586 BC, when moral and spiritual corruption had spread throughout Judah. The 'adulterers' refers both to literal unfaithfulness and spiritual adultery—the people's abandonment of their covenant with God for idol worship. The environmental imagery of drought and desolation was often used by prophets to show how human sin affects all of creation.
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