John Gill Commentary Jeremiah 11:14

"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." — Jeremiah 11:14 (ASV)

Therefore pray not you for this people If for a remnant among them, yet not for the body of the people; and if for their spiritual and eternal good, yet not for their temporal salvation; their temporal ruin was certain; the decree was gone forth, and there was no revoking it; and this is said, not so much by way of prohibition of the prophet, as by way of threatening to the people, to show that as their own prayers should not profit them, so they should not have the benefit of the prayers of good men, their sin was a sin to death, at least temporal death, and must not be prayed for, (1 John 5:16).

neither lift up a cry or prayer for them; More words are used to show the divine resolution: how inexorable he was, how desperate their condition was, and how sure their ruin was; these words are repeated from (Jeremiah 7:16).

for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to me for their trouble; For, as he would not hear their prayers when they should cry to him to be delivered from their trouble, it cannot be thought that he should hear the prayers of others for them.

The Targum understands this of the prayers of the prophet for them, paraphrasing the words thus, ``for there is no acceptance before me (or it is not pleasing to me) when you shall pray for them before me, in the time of their evil;'' neither their prayers, nor the prophet's for them, would be acceptable to God, or of any avail, he being determined to bring evil upon them.