Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 12:3

"But thou, O Jehovah, knowest me; thou seest me, and triest my heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter." — Jeremiah 12:3 (ASV)

You, O Lord, know me. — Like all faithful sufferers from evildoers before and after him, the prophet appeals to the righteous Judge, who knows how falsely he has been accused. In words in which the natural impatience of suffering shows itself as clearly as in the complaints of Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, he asks that the judgment may be immediate, open, terrible. As if recalling the very phrase which he had himself recently used (Jeremiah 11:19), he prays that they too may be as sheep for the slaughter, dragged or torn away from their security to the righteous penalty of their wrongdoing.

Prepare. — Better, devote. The Hebrew word, as in Jeremiah 6:4, involves the idea of consecration.