Jeremiah 15:17

(Verse 17, 18.) I did not sit in the council of the jesters, and I boasted (or feared) from the face of your hand: I sat alone, for you filled me with bitterness ((Vulgate: threat)). Why has my pain become perpetual (or why do those who distress me, find comfort) and my incurable wound refuse to be healed (or my strong wound, from where shall I be cured)? It has become to me like the falsehood of unfaithful waters (or like water that deceives and lacks faith). The Hebrews believe that these things are said from the perspective of Jerusalem: that she alone sat, and is filled with bitterness, and her pain has become everlasting; and just as waters pass by, so the words of the Prophets, with which they promised themselves prosperity, have passed falsely. But it is better, if we understand these things to be said from the perspective of the Prophet, by the words of a holy man, who did not sit in the assembly or secret gathering of those who mock, because he feared the impending hand of God; or rather, boasted that he did not have fellowship with evil. Alone, he said, I was sitting, according to what is written: I did not sit with the council of vanity, and I will not enter with those who do evil. I hated the congregation of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked (Psalm 26: 4, 5). And in another place, I am solitary until I pass through. On your face, he said, your hands, I was sitting alone (Psalm 140: 10), while I fear you, while I always expect your impending hand. I did not want to sit in the council of jesters, but I swallowed my bitterness, so that I might prepare joy for myself in the future. I had no intervals of pain, but I was constantly weighed down by unceasing misery, expecting no remedies. Those who afflicted me prevailed, and my wound became severe. But in this I had consolation, that it was like deceitful water, passing away. Just as passing waters flow and seem to vanish, so too does every attack of my enemies pass by with your help. May the Lord grant that we do not sit in the council of the mockers, or with those who do not consider the future, nor yield to adversity, but always fear God's judgment and say with the Prophet: I sat alone because I am filled with bitterness. Therefore, let him rejoice in the present time, not in the advice of the wise, but in the secret and hidden amusement of the playful; let it be good for me to adhere…

"I did not sit in the assembly of them when they made sport." If ever the prophet saw the assembly not of those in earnest but of those making sport, he fled from being gathered together rather than hastened toward the gathering of those making sport. You must, then, understand the difference between an assembly of those making sport and of those in earnest. This assembly is earnest and does all things with earnestness and things worthy of earnestness, and according to the saying: the word is earnestness, the life is earnestness, and altogether the assembly is not of those making sport, but of those in earnest. But whenever the assembly, forsaking the earnestness about necessary things, gives its leisure to the playthings of this age and to the playthings that come from wickedness, it becomes an assembly of those making sport. This one, then, says: "I did not sit in the assembly of them when they made sport, but I was in awe before the presence of your hand." Two things being set before me — to sit in the assembly of those making sport and to give offense to you the God and not to please you, or to rise up from the assembly of those making sport and to do the things that were dear to you — I chose rather to rise up from the assembly of those making sport and to be a friend to you, than, doing the contrary, to become an enemy to your blessedness. "I did not sit in the assembly of them when they made sport, but I was in awe before the presence of your hand." And our Savior did not sit "in the assembly of them when they made sport," but rose up away from them. And a sign that the Savior had risen up from the assembly of those making sport is his having said: "Your house is left to you desolate." For the word of God has forsaken the assembly of the Jews and has made for himself another assembly and church, the one from the nations. "I sat alone." And here too the words are ordered by design. When there is a multitude of sinners and they do not bear the righteous man living righteously, it is nothing strange that one fleeing the assembly of wickedness should imitate him who said, "I sat alone," and should imitate also Elijah who says, "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I am left utterly alone, and they seek my life, to take it." And perhaps too, if you examine "I sat alone" more deeply, you will find a certain sense worthy…