Jeremiah 12:5

The Lord replied by asking Jeremiah how he expected to be able to endure the rigors of coming antagonism if the present hostility he was experiencing wore him out (cf. Jeremiah 11:19; Jeremiah 11:21; Jeremiah 23:21). If he fell in a relatively peaceful environment, how could he get though the turbulence to come, which resembled the violent, overflowing Jordan River in the spring. The Jordan Valley was a sub-tropical jungle, inhabited by lions, that was hard to penetrate at any season of the year (cf. Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44; 2 Kings 6:2).