7 As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds.
God invites us to knowledge also, when he says by Jeremiah, “If you had walked in the way of God, you would have dwelled forever in peace.” … God grants pardon to those who have erred. He says, “Turn, turn, as a grape gatherer returns to his basket.” Do you see the goodness of justice in that it advises us to repent? And through Jeremiah, he provides further enlightenment in the truth for those who have erred” “Thus says the Lord, stand in the roads, and look. Ask for the eternal paths of the Lord. Look for the good path, and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls.” He leads us to repentance in order to promote our salvation.
Behold the mercy and piety of the good God. When he wishes to be merciful, he says that he is displeased and angry. As he says through Jeremiah, “You will be chastised, Jerusalem, with pain and a scourge, lest my soul depart from you.” If you understand these words, it is the voice of God having compassion when he is angry, when he is jealous, when he brings pains and beatings. “For he scourges every one whom he receives.”
It was that you may learn that God silently and noiselessly observes the affairs of people and watches the course of each one’s life, and so it is written, “The paths of a person are before the eyes of God, and God looks at all his tracks.” And as he is good and wills that all people should be saved, he often purifies those who are entangled in sins by inflicting sickness on their body. He somewhere says by the voice of Jeremiah, “You shall be taught, O Jerusalem, by labor and the scourge.”
(Verse 7) This is a city of visitation (or falsehood); all slander (or oppression) is in its midst. Just as a well or a lake makes its water cold, so it has made its evil cold. The Lord has commanded that trees be cut down, and that mounds be built all around. For the time of its visitation has come, to receive payment for its sins, the greatest of which is false accusation, to oppress the innocent through slander. Just as a well or a cold pond makes its water cold, so in the midst of Jerusalem, the malice that is in it has lost all the warmth of life. And it should be noted that those who are kindled by the Holy Spirit are called fervent, but evil things are cold. Hence it is written (Matthew 24) that in the last days, when iniquity shall be multiplied, the charity of many shall grow cold. I believe this also sounds like that: I am made like those who go down into the pit (Psalm 28:1). However, let the Latin reader understand, as we have said once, that lacus does not sound like stagnum among the Greeks, but like cisterna, which is called Gubba in the Syriac and Hebrew languages. However, in the present place, instead of lacus, which everyone has similarly translated, it is called Bor in Hebrew.
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Jeremiah 6:6-9