If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
If those ordinances depart ... then ... Israel also shall cease from being a nation. Israel's national polity has been broken up by the Romans. But their preservation as a distinct people amidst violent persecutions, though scattered among all nations for 18 centuries, unamalgamated, whereas all other peoples under such circumstances have become incorporated with the nations in which they have been dispersed, is a perpetual standing miracle (cf. Jeremiah 33:20-21; Psalms 148:6; Isaiah 54:9-10).