Jeremiah 5:3
O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
The verse describes Jerusalem in Jeremiah's day, whose people had not obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and had refused to receive correction, and that disobedience and refusal is why the city had slid back by a perpetual backsliding. The Lord's eyes are upon the truth, for He looks for truth and repentance from His people. To bring that correction He strikes and consumes them with reproofs, counsel, and chastening, to keep the sinner from ruining his own soul and bringing reproach upon His cause. Yet though struck and consumed they feel no grief, refuse to receive correction and discipline, make their faces harder than a rock, and refuse to return, in stubborn resistance to His warnings.
Such refusal is to receive reproof outwardly but not in heart enough to die to the carnal mind, not to set to work to eradicate the evil, but soon to lose the smart of the chastening rod and rush on in as great foolishness as ever. It is a sorrow like that of those who anciently rent their garments without afflicting their souls, without a correct sense of what sin is and without sensing the aggravating character of unchastity of thought and action. Instead of advancing and growing in grace and knowledge of the truth, they retrograde, without the repentance that needeth not to be repented of.
The verse thus exposes those who claim to understand their Bibles but are not doers of the Word, showing they need reformation and a thorough change as children of God.