1. Jeremiah 4:14 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Why must Jerusalem “wash her heart from evil”?

Jeremiah 4:14 (ESV)

14 O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?

Again, Jeremiah seems to insert his own voice into his prophecy of looming judgment, and he urges the people of Jerusalem to wash your hearts from evil. This is a call for deep change. They are to remove the deeply ingrained dirt of moral and spiritual failure from their hearts (see Jeremiah 2:22). External religious reform is not enough (Mackay, p 222).1