This relapse into heathenism filled the soul of Jeremiah with grief and indignation, but gave to him a courage foreign to his timid and shrinking nature.  In the presence of the king, the princes, and priests he was defiant, immovable, and fearless, uttering his solemn warnings from day to day with noble fidelity.  All classes turned against him; the nobles were furious at his exposure of their license and robberies, the priests hated him for his denunciation of hypocrisy, and the people for his gloomy prophecies that the Temple should be destroyed, Jerusalem reduced to ashes, and they themselves led into captivity.

Not only were crime and idolatry rampant, but the death of Josiah was followed by droughts and famine.  In vain were the prayers of Jeremiah to avert calamity.  Jehovah replied to him:  “Pray not for this people!  Though they fast, I will not hear their cry; though they offer sacrifice I have no pleasure in them, but will consume them by the sword, by famine, and pestilence.”  Jeremiah piteously gives way to despairing lamentations.  “Hast thou, O Lord, utterly rejected Judah?  Is thy soul tired of Zion?  Why hast thou smitten us so that there is no healing for us?” Jehovah replies:  “If Moses and Samuel stood pleading before me, my soul could not be toward this people.  I appoint four destroyers,—­the sword to slay, the dogs to tear and fight over the corpse, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field; for who will have pity on thee, O Jerusalem?  Thou hast rejected me.  I am weary of relenting.  I will scatter them as with a broad winnowing-shovel, as men scatter the chaff on the threshing-floor.”

Such, amid general depravity and derision, were some of the utterances of the prophet, during the reign of Jehoiakim.  Among other evils which he denounced was the neglect of the Sabbath, so faithfully observed in earlier and better times.  At the gates of the city he cried aloud against the general profanation of the sacred day, which instead of being a day of rest was the busiest day of the week, when the city was like a great fair and holiday.  On this day the people of the neighboring villages brought for sale their figs and grapes and wine and vegetables; on this day the wine-presses were trodden in the country, and the harvest was carried to the threshing-floors.  The preacher made himself especially odious for his rebuke for the violation of the Sabbath.  “Come,” said his enemies to the crowd, “let us lay a plot against him; let us smite him with the tongue by reporting his words to the king, and bearing false witness against him.”  On this renewed persecution the prophet does not as usual give way to lamentation, but hurls his maledictions.  “O Jehovah! give thou their sons to hunger, deliver them to the sword; let their wives be made childless and widows; let their strong men be given over to death, and their young men be smitten with the sword.”