It is evident that at first the young prophet hoped great things of this national league and the associated reforms in the public worship. In his eleventh chapter, he writes thus: "The word that fell to Jeremiah from Iahvah, saying: Hear ye the words of this covenant"--presumably the words of the newfound book of the Torah--"And speak ye to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And thou shalt say unto them"--the change from the second plural "hear ye," "speak ye," is noticeable. In the first instance, no doubt, the message contemplates the leaders of the reforming movement generally; the prophet is specially addressed in the words, "And _thou_ shalt say unto them, Thus said Iahvah, the God of Israel, Cursed is the man that will not hear the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers, in the day when I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Hearken to My voice, and do them, according to all that I command you; and ye shall become to Me a people, and I--I will become to you Elohim: in order to make good the oath that I sware to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. "And I answered and said, So be it, Iahvah! "And Iahvah said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For I solemnly adjured your fathers, at the time when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, (and) unto this day, with all earnestness [earnestly and incessantly], saying, Hearken ye to My voice. And they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, and they walked individually in the stubbornness of their evil heart. So I brought upon them all the words of this covenant"--_i.e._, the curses, which constituted the sanction of it: see Deut. iv. 25 _sqq._, xxviii. 15 _sqq._--"(this covenant) which I commanded them to do, and they did it not." [Or perhaps, "Because I bade them _do_, and they _did_ not;" implying a general prescription of conduct, which was not observed. Or, "I who had bidden them do, and they did not"--justifying, as it were, God's assumption of the function of punishment. _His_ law had been set at nought; the national reverses, therefore, were _His_ infliction, and not another's.] This, then, was the first preaching of Jeremiah. "Hear ye the words of this covenant!"--the covenant drawn out with such precision and legal formality in the newfound book of the Torah. Up and down the country, "in the cities of Judah" and "in the streets of Jerusalem," everywhere within the bounds of the little kingdom that acknowledged the house of David, he published this panacea for the actual and imminent evils of the time, insisting, we may be sure, with all the eloquence of a youthful patriot, upon the impressive warnings embodied in the past history of Israel, as set forth in the book of the Law. But his best efforts were fruitless. Eloquence and patriotism and