Jeremiah 18:21 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Deliver up their children to the famine; a dreadful imprecation; we meet with more of the same nature, Jeremiah 11:20, Jeremiah 15:15 17:18. We find also several such imprecation in the Psalms, Psalms 35:4, Psalms 40:14 69:22-25,27,28 109:6-10, &c. Hence a question is raised, whether it be lawful for God's servants to pray for evil against their enemies. That which makes the doubt is, Christ's command to us to pray for them that persecute us, Matthew 5:43,44, his own example, and Stephen s, Acts 7:60. See the notes upon the aforementioned texts. It is doubtless our duty to pray for the conversion, forgiveness, and eternal salvation of our worst enemies; so Christ prayed, and Stephen, but neither of them prayed for their outward prosperity in their persecution and rage; and without doubt we may pray against God's enemies, that God would tie their hands, weaken their power, confound their devices. For such other particulars as are mentioned in this verse, and the beginning of the following verse, and such as David mentions, Psa 69, we must know they were both prophets, and did but pray to God to do that thing which God had revealed to them he would do.