"Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, And like the dew that disappears early.
All of the sacred writers have recognized that God's efforts to save are ultimately discontinued in the face of persistent and willful disobedience.  The first chapter of Romans relates how God hardened and rejected the entire pre-Christian Gentile world.  "God gave them up" is the ominous refrain repeated three times in that chapter  (Hosea 6:24,26,28). There comes a time in the affairs of God and men that there is not any more that even God can do.  Such is the awesome corollary of that freedom of the will with which God has endowed his human children.