Or do the heavens give the showers?
Art Thou not He for whom we must wait?
Yea, Thou hast created all these.]
As the Book now runs this prayer receives from God a repulse, XV. 1-4, similar to that which was received by the people's prayer after the drought XIV. 10-12, and to that which Hosea heard to the prayer of his generation.[432] Intercession for such a people is useless, were it made even by Moses and Samuel; they are doomed to perish by the sword, famine and exile. This passage is in prose and of doubtful origin. But the next lines are in Jeremiah's favourite metre and certainly his own. They either describe or (less probably) anticipate the disaster of 598. God Himself again is the speaker as in XII. 7-11. His Patience which the Parable of the Potter illustrated has its limits,[433] and these have now been reached. It is not God who is to blame, but Jerusalem and Judah who have failed Him.
Jerusalem, who shall pity, XV. 5
Who shall bemoan thee,
Who will but turn him to ask
After thy welfare?
'Tis thou that hast left Me—Rede of the Lord— 6
Still going backward.