1. The prophet’s complaint and Jehovah’s answer (Jeremiah 9:1-9)

2. The cause of desolation and destruction (Jeremiah 9:10-16)

3. The call for the mourning and wailing women (Jeremiah 9:17-22)

4. Glorying in the Lord in view of judgment (Jeremiah 9:23-26)

Jeremiah 9:1-9. Here again is a deplorable break. The opening verses of this chapter belong to the preceding one. The prophet still speaks. He is overwhelmed with sorrow; his eyes are fountains of tears. He weeps day and night over the slain. He wishes himself away in some wilderness, to be alone and separated from the adulterous generation. Then follows a description of the moral corruption of the people. The Lord answered him and once more asks the question: “Shall not I visit them for these things? saith the LORD; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (See Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 5:29.)

Jeremiah 9:10-16. Jerusalem will be heaps, ruins and a den of dragons. The cities of Judah will be desolate. But why is it like this? Because they forsook His law, obeyed not His voice, and practiced idolatries. Therefore their portion would be wormwood and gall. They would be scattered among the nations.

Jeremiah 9:17-22. The time of wailing and mourning is at hand. “For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without and the young men from the street.” Pestilence was to sweep over them and enter into their habitations. Hence the call to the professional wailers to sing the mournful dirges of death. These wailing women are also called “wise women,” for they dabbled in magical, occult things, in familiar spirits and in soothsaying.

Jeremiah 9:23-26. The days were coming when judgment would strike Jews and Gentiles, for the uncircumcised Gentiles and for Israel, uncircumcised in heart. In view of these days of judgment the prophet exhorts to stop their boasts in wisdom, in might and in riches, for all availeth nothing. “But let him that glorieth glory in Me, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness, in the earth, for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.” May we also glory in Him and not in the things of the dust, the temporal, the passing things, which are but for a moment! Let us remember “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”