God the Rod

^8-11 God explained, “This is the way I am going to ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem—a wicked bunch of people who won’t obey me, who do only what they want to do, who chase after all kinds of no-gods and worship them. They’re going to turn out as rotten as these old shorts. Just as shorts clothe and protect, so I kept the whole family of Israel under my care”—God’s Decree—“so that everyone could see they were my people, a people I could show off to the world and be proud of. But they refused to do a thing I said.

God really loves Israel, first and foremost, the most basic reason is that God promised Israel's people in  Deut7:7-8:

⁷ The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
⁸ But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

This promise that kept Israel from withering out! God talked here about Israel being the fewest of all people that is why God chose them. 

In spite of that, in Jeremiah, God really turned away from His people. He was really angry with His people.

“Watch closely now. I’m going to teach these wrongheaded people.
    Starting right now, I’m going to teach them
Who I am and what I do,
    teach them the meaning of my name, God—‘I Am.’”

 

Wow, if somone said that i am going to stay far far away from him, but when its God who said it, i would really tremble in fear.