To your God[198] circumcise ye,
Off from your heart with the foreskin!
Lest My wrath break out like the fire,
And burn with none to quench.[199]
Jeremiah has been called the blackest of pessimists, and among his best-known sayings some seem to justify the charge:—
Can the Ethiop change his skin,
Or the leopard his spots?
Then also may ye do good,
Who are wont to do evil.[200]
And again,