Jeremiah 25:3

He mentions the great number of years in order to emphasize God's long-suffering in putting up with unbelievers for so long. I sent my servants the prophets to you, he says. I urged you to abandon the road to ruin and travel by the other road that produces life. I, in fact, promised you blessings for doing this. But you did not listen, and instead you chose the worship of idols. And to censure the purpose of this unbelief he went on, "So that you might provoke me by the works of your own hands to your own misfortune." To provoke me, you committed those things, but then you also reaped their harmful effects then as well.

(Version 3.) From the thirteenth year of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah, until this day, which is the twenty-third year, the word of the Lord came to me, and I spoke to you, rising up at night and speaking, but you did not listen. In the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, who reigned in Jerusalem for thirty-one years, Jeremiah began to prophesy, and he prophesied under him for nineteen years. After him, his son Joahaz became king, but he was immediately taken into captivity by Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, and his brother Joachim succeeded to the throne (2 Kings 23). In the fourth year of his reign, this message of the Lord comes to Jeremiah and thus it was the twenty-third year of the prophet Jeremiah, since he began speaking to the people. And he never ceased to preach, but every day, rising at dawn and in the night, he spoke to the people. And you have not listened, he says. But if, as the heretics want from the old things, the law was given once for help, and established precepts which we do or do not do according to our own will; how does the Prophet always thrust himself forward and daily repeat the commands of God, which, certainly once received, were enough for those to whom they were given, unless to show this, that we always need the help of God and can never be sufficient, what was given once, unless it is renewed daily by the reminder of the Lord? And the Lord sent to all of you his servants the Prophets, rising up in the morning and sending them; and you did not listen. Not through one Prophet, but through all his people, God always warned, and as if he himself arose in watchful vigil and stood up in the morning, to warn his people. And you did not listen; so with the more frequent admonition, how much greater have been the sins of those who despise?