Lamentations 3:33

Not afflict willingly. The wonderful love of God for His children fairly radiates through this passage. It is not the desire or will of God to hurt or destroy any of His creatures. He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter. 3:9). In His desire to lead men to salvation the Lord will pour out an abundant manifestation of His mercies. Sometimes, when all else has failed, the Lord, in love to man, will permit afflictions to come upon him, to bring him to repentance. Such was the case with the nation of Judah in Jeremiah’s day. “God had long delayed His judgments because of His unwillingness to humiliate His chosen people, but now He would visit His displeasure upon them as a last effort to check them in their evil course” (4T 165).