“Jeremiah tells us that [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants had become so sensual and materialistic that they had lost all sense of divine values: ‘They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.’ (Jer. 4:22.)
“‘They be all adulterers,’ Jeremiah said about the mores of that generation. (Jer. 9:2.) …
“The people’s preoccupation with sensuality was matched by their covetousness and dishonesty. Jeremiah lamented, ‘From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.’ (Jer. 6:13.)” (Meservy, “Jerusalem at the Time of Lehi and Jeremiah,” 23).