Jeremiah 4:22

God indicts His people as foolish children who are clever at evil but ignorant of doing good. It matters because it diagnoses sin as a deep, willful folly, not mere ignorance.

Cross-references · 28

• 1 Cor 14:20Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.
• Rom 16:19For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.
• Jer 5:21‘Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear:
• Rom 3:11There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.
• Hos 4:6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.
• Rom 1:22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
• Hos 5:4Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.
• John 16:3They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.
• Mic 2:1Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.
• Deut 32:28For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.
• Rom 1:28Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
• Isa 6:9–10He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand; and you see indeed, but don’t perceive.’
• Isa 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
• Jer 13:23Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.
• Jer 10:8But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.
• Isa 1:3The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know, my people don’t consider.”
• 1 Cor 1:20–21Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
• Jer 5:4Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God.
• Ps 14:1–4For the Chief Musician. By David. The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.
• Isa 42:19–20Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as Yahweh’s servant?
• 2 Sam 16:21–23Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines that he has left to keep the house. Then all Israel will hear that you are abhorred by your father. Then the hands of all who are with you will be strong.”
• Jer 8:7–9Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.
• Deut 32:6Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.
• Luke 16:8“His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser than the children of the light.
• Hos 4:1Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.
• Matt 23:16–26“Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’
• Isa 29:10–12For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.
• 2 Sam 13:3But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very subtle man.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.