24. “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded.” If you refuse this offer, nay, go on obstinately to despise instruction, then hear the doom which God, whose voice wisdom is, passes upon you. Because I have pressed you often to amend [correct], and ye would not yield to me; nay, I have been very urgent and earnest with you (offering you my assistance, heaping upon you many benefits, and when they would doe [do] no good, laying on corrections, as well as showing you the way to happiness) and none of you would so much as attend unto me.
25. “But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof” But, quite contrary, set at naught all the good advices I gave you, as if they had been but vain and idle words; and slighted all my reproofs and threatening, as if they had been ridiculous, or of no moment.
26. “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.” Therefore I will repay you in your kind [in the same manner]; and as little regard what becomes of you, in the day of your calamity (which like a dismal cloud I will bring upon you unavoidably). I will be utterly unconcerned, when you know not which way to turn your selves; but are become the scorn of those, who shall see you quake and tremble at that, which before you would not fear at all.
27. “When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.” Though it prove such a dreadful calamity, as will lay all waste, it shall not move me to relieve you, but I will let it sweep you and all you have away like a whirlwind. And when you fall into the most pinching outward distresses, and into the forced anguish of mind, you shall evidently see, it was my pleasure to reduce you to those inextricable straits and pressures.
28. “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” For then (hearken all you that have not yet sinned to this degree of obstinacy) it will be very hard for these men not to think of me, whom before they would not regard. Nay, they shall cry to me for help, but I will send them none. They shall seek my favor importunately, but without the least success.
29. “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord.” Because, when time was, they hated that knowledge, of which now they are forced to be desirous, and when they were earnestly solicited to have some regard to God and to religion, they would not consent unto it.
30. “They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof” But (as was said before) rejected my good advice with such disdain, as if it had been a grievance to them, and slighted, nay contemned all those reproofs, whereby I would have reclaimed them from their impiety.
31. “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.” Therefore, as it is just that men should reap what they sow, and eat such fruit as they plant, so these men shall suffer the punishments, which their wicked doings naturally produce. Nay, be glutted and surfeited [surfeited—indulged to excess] with the miserable effects of their own counsels and contrivances.
32. “For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.” For let them alone and they need no body but themselves to destroy them: their escaping dangers, only making them more audacious to run into them and their receiving daily additions of riches and honors, supplying their folly with means to hasten their undoing.
33. “But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.” Such a vast difference there is between wicked and virtuous men. For whoso follows my counsels, and takes the courses to which I direct him, shall even then be safe, and possess what he hath in peace, when he sees these fools come to ruin. Nay, he shall not be so much as disturbed with the fear of any mischief, but rest secure of a watchful Providence over him.