Jeremiah warned Judah of God’s judgment should they refuse to repent. It should have been an easy job. Judah’s cousins—the Israelites, had already suffered God’s wrath for idolatry and wickedness. That should have warned Judah to be faithful. But instead of learning from Israel’s mistakes, Judah imitated them. In Jeremiah 3:11, God says, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.”
How could Judah be considered worse than Israel? How could we be considered worse than the faithless? Perhaps verse ten provides the answer. There, God says, “…Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense…” Faithlessness will incur God’s wrath. But it seems that pretense is even worse. To pretend to serve God—to serve Him without whole-hearted devotion—God considers that treachery. It’s easy to point the finger at unbelievers, but perhaps we should examine our own hearts and ensure that pretense does not render us even less righteous than the faithless.