Jeremiah 2:29-30

Wherefore will ye plead with me? Why do you insist upon your innocence? See Jeremiah 2:35. Why do you lay claim to my former promises, as if you had not forfeited your title to them by your sins? In vain have I smitten your children That is, the children or people of Judah. They had been under divine rebukes of many kinds, whereby God designed to bring them to repentance, but it was in vain: they did not answer God's end in afflicting them; their consciences were not awakened, nor their hearts softened and humbled, nor were they induced to seek unto God by repentance and prayer. They received no correction Though they were corrected, yet they would not be instructed and reformed. They did not receive, that is, they did not submit to, or comply with, the correction; but in their hearts fretted against and opposed the Lord. Observe, reader, it is a great loss thus to lose an affliction. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets You are so far from receiving and improving by God's chastisements, that you take away the lives of those prophets who, in God's name, reprove you, and call you to repentance. Thus Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, was put to death in the reign of Joash, 2 Chronicles 24:20. See also 1Ki 19:1; 1 Kings 19:10; Nehemiah 9:26; Matthew 23:30.