Their deeds won't allow them to turn to their God; For the spirit of prostitution is within them, And they don't know Yahweh.
But God in the meantime not only shows here, that there was no more any remedy for the diseases of the people; but he also gravely and severely reprobates their iniquity, because they thought not of seeking reconciliation with their God; as though he said, “What, then, do I require of these wretched men, but to return to their God? This they ought to have done of their own accord; but now, when they are admonished, they care not; on the contrary, they fiercely resist wholesome instruction. Is not this a strange and monstrous madness?” We hence see that there is an important meaning in the words, They will not apply their endeavors to return to their God; for the Prophet might have simply said, “to return to Jehovah,” or “to God;” but he says, to their God, and he says so, because God had made himself familiarly known to them, nay, brought them up in his own bosom, as though they were his children and he their Father: they had forsaken him and had become apostates; and when the Lord would now reprove this perfidy, was it not strange that the people should close their ears and harden their hearts against every instruction? We hence see how sharp this reproof is. 