How did the people do worse than their fathers by not listening to the Lord’s prophets?

From the very start of his relationship with Israel, from the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, the Lord had persistently spoken to his people by sending his prophets, day after day. But they did not listen, but stiffened their necks. This is a farming metaphor for an animal that is not willing to bend its neck to have the yoke placed on it. Without the yoke the animal is of no use to its master.¹ There is a steady regression in Israel’s history. The they, referred to in the first part of Jeremiah 7:28, refers to all previous generations. In the second part of the verse they refers to each previous generation on its own, compared to the generation before it. In other words, despite the many blessings the nation received from the Lord, they were always on a slippery spiritual slope.²