Jeremiah 4:23-26

23-26. I beheld, etc. Resuming the general course of thought, another group of images is brought forward to show the fearfulness of the destruction impending. And this time they are the most terrible which nature furnishes; the same which, in other passages, are employed to set forth God’s great judgment days. See Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:10, etc., etc. The established order by which time is both created and measured here gives place to a kind of primeval chaos. The earth again becomes desolation and emptiness without form, and void. The lights in the heavens go out in darkness. The mountains tremble to their bases, and the hills totter to their fall. All life of man, and even of birds, has fled away; only darkness, solitude, and death remain. The fruitful place (Carmel) is a wilderness, and all the cities are destroyed. Though Jeremiah has sometimes been set down as wanting in force and finish of style, yet there is no similar passage in the Bible which surpasses this.