Albert Barnes Commentary Jeremiah 11:14-17

"Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me because of their trouble. What hath my beloved to do in my house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness [with] many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. Jehovah called thy name, A green olive-tree, fair with goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken. For Jehovah of hosts, who planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have wrought for themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense unto Baal." — Jeremiah 11:14-17 (ASV)

A parenthesis. As in Jeremiah 7:16, all intercession is forbidden, and for this reason: Prayer for others for the forgiveness of their sins is effective only when they also pray. The cry of the people now was that of the guilty smarting under punishment, not of the penitent mourning over sin.

Jeremiah 11:15: This passage, like Isaiah 1:12, rebukes the inconsistency of Judah’s public worship of Yahweh with their private immorality and preference for idolatry. Translate it: What has My beloved in My house to practice guile there? The great men and the holy flesh (i.e., the sacrifices) will pass away from you.

Jeremiah 11:16: The goodly or shapely fruit, signifies the righteousness and faith which ought to have been the result of Israel’s possession of extraordinary privileges. The tree did not bear this fruit, and God now destroys it by a thunderstorm.