Zephaniah 3:3

This is not Nineveh, but Jerusalem. The most solemn word of God is always reserved for His own people, city, and sanctuary. Judgment must begin at His house. The condemning word may end with His house, but judgment begins there.

And because she was untrue to her God and Lord, oppressive cruelty and evil persisted. It was the outcome of her wrong attitude toward the Lord. Her leaders, the princes, were like roaring lions, devouring the prey. In oppressing the poor, her judges were like ravenous wolves, fierce and destructive. How well all this fits the Christian world today. There is disobedience to the Lord, no faith in Him, no humbling and no repentance. That is where today's moral conditions come from.

This is the well-known animal that Scripture calls "ravenous," and it hunts its prey in the evening. Wolves are very destructive among sheep, mauling and killing more than they can eat. That makes the wolf a fitting picture of the wicked, who attack the sheep and lambs of God's flock, and even creep in among them.

God had been in the midst of the holy city, now polluted, but she would not draw near to Him nor obey Him. Her princes were violent men, her judges were greedy, her prophets empty and treacherous, her priests polluted the sanctuary. Jehovah was there to show them their sins and His judgment, but the wicked felt no shame in their evil.

Of course all the people carry their own responsibility. But the chief weight falls according to the position each person holds. Evil in a man who holds a position of trust is worse than the same evil in someone under him, and it is rightly treated as more serious. Wrongdoing in a judge, for example, is graver than dishonesty in a stable-hand or his master.

Shamelessness in evil, once a person gives in to it, always marks the fall of those who enjoyed better light and then gave it up. Nothing is more blessed than light from God. Where the heart enjoys that light, it wakes the conscience up. But nothing is more terrible than light that people despise until it becomes a mere name, a common and unholy thing.

Their case was hopeless, despite the longing, pleading voice of their God. They kept on in their careless, stubborn rebellion and turning away from Him, until God poured out His wrath on them, and there was no remedy left. God's patience has limits in the way He governs, and His ancient people have had to learn that through centuries of discipline and sorrow. And yet, blessed be His name, God never takes back His gifts or His calling.