2Ch 33:10  36:15  Ne 9:26,30  Mt 23:34-37 
   In the following verses the doom of Judah and Jerusalem is
   passed, and it is a heavy doom.  The prophets were sent in the
   first place to teach them the knowledge of God, to remind them
   of their duty, and direct them in it:  if they succeeded not
   in that, their next work was to reprove them for their sins,
   and to set them in view before them, that they might repent
   and reform, and return to their duty:  if in this they
   prevailed not, their next work was to foretell the judgments
   of God, that the terror of them might awaken to repentance
   those who would not be made sensible of the obligations of his
   love; or else that the execution of them, in their season,
   might be a demonstration of the divine mission of the prophets
   who foretold them.  They were made judges to those who would
   not hear and receive them as teachers.--Henry.