24 In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. 3 And utter a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, Thus says the Lord God:
“Set on the pot, set it on;
pour in water also;
4 put in it the pieces of meat,
all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder;
fill it with choice bones.
5 Take the choicest one of the flock;
pile the logs under it;
boil it well;
seethe also its bones in it.
6 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, without making any choice. 7 For the blood she has shed is in her midst; she put it on the bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground to cover it with dust. 8 To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have set on the bare rock the blood she has shed, that it may not be covered. 9 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great. 10 Heap on the logs, kindle the fire, boil the meat well, mix in the spices, and let the bones be burned up. 11 Then set it empty upon the coals, that it may become hot, and its copper may burn, that its uncleanness may be melted in it, its corrosion consumed. 12 She has wearied herself with toil; its abundant corrosion does not go out of it. Into the fire with its corrosion! 13 On account of your unclean lewdness, because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your uncleanness, you shall not be cleansed any more till I have satisfied my fury upon you. 14 I am the Lord. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord God.”
The precise meaning of 6ff may not be clear, but what seems to be in view is that, great as the pressure has been upon Jerusalem, and in spite of it, the blood-guiltiness of the people of God has still not been purged, it was still crying out to heaven, and there was still no adequate repentance. Zedekiah was still truculent in face of impending doom. Jeremiah had said to him, 'Serve the king of Babylon and live', and to have heeded this counsel would have been a sign of his repentance; but no, he rebelled against Babylon, and this meant that the sin of the people was therefore still there, and still crying out to God. Their sin had, in fact, become so deeply ingrained in them that not even the pressure of judgment was sufficing to purge it out of them. Hence the terrible pronouncement in 13 about the divine fury being vented to the full upon them. There is a very solemn lesson here: we must learn to beware lest sin become so ingrained in us that we are no longer amenable to the ordinary processes of sanctification, i.e. the discipline of God's Word and Spirit - which are God's normal way of cleansing and renewing us - and we need the fire of God's stern judgment upon our lives to burn it out of us. There does come a time when the heart becomes impervious to the Word and Spirit in their gracious work of renewal, and when that time comes, there is nothing left for God to do but to kindle the fires of judgment to burn the sin out of us.