The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
From here to Jeremiah 6:30 a new discourse, delivered in Josiah's reign: it consists of two parts, the former extending to Jeremiah 4:3, in which he warns Judah from the example of Israel's doom, and yet promises Israel final restoration; the latter a threat of Babylonian invasion: as Nabopolassar founded the Babylonian empire 625 BC, the seventeenth of Josiah, this prophecy is perhaps not earlier than that date (Jeremiah 4:5, etc.; Jeremiah 5:14, etc.; Jeremiah 6:1, etc.; Jeremiah 22:1-30.); and probably not later than the second thorough reformation, in the eighteenth year of the same reign.
Backsliding - literally, apostasy: not merely apostate, but apostasy itself, the essence of it (Jeremiah 3:14; Jeremiah 3:22).