Jeremiah 9:14

14 Instead, they have followed their own willful hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.

Jeremiah 9:14 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 9:14

But have walked after the imagination of their own heart
What their own hearts devised, chose, and were best pleased with; (See Gill on Jeremiah 7:24), and after Baalim;
the idols of the Gentiles; these they served and worshipped, and not the true God: which their fathers taught them;
which was so far from excusing them, that it was an aggravation of their sin, that they had continued in their wicked ways and idolatrous practices, from age to age, from one generation to another. This then was the cause of their calamity and destruction; they had forsaken the law of the Lord, and had broken that; they had chose their own ways, and had been guilty of idolatrous practices time out of mind; wherefore the Lord had shown much longsuffering and patience with them, and would now no longer forbear he was just and righteous in his doings.

Jeremiah 9:14 In-Context

12 Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been taught by the LORD and can therefore explain it? Why has the land been reduced to rubble and laid waste like a desert, with no one passing through?

13 The LORD says: It is because they have abandoned my Instruction that I gave them, and haven't obeyed or followed it.

14 Instead, they have followed their own willful hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.

15 Therefore, this is what the LORD of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: I'm going to feed this people bitter food and give them poison to drink.

16 I will scatter them among nations about whom neither they nor their ancestors have ever heard. I will pursue them with the sword until all are gone.