Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 20:16

"And let that man be as the cities which Jehovah overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime;" — Jeremiah 20:16 (ASV)

The cities which the Lord overthrew. —The verb is the same as that used in Genesis 19:29, and the reference is clearly to the “cities of the plain,” whose destruction is there described. The reference to them in Deuteronomy 32:32; Isaiah 1:9–10, shows that they had already become familiar to people as the great representative instances both of evil and its punishment.

The cry ... the shouting. —The former word describes the wail of lamentation, the latter the shout of an invading army.