When enemy forces, roaring like lions, threatened these Israelites, they did not appeal to the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. They turned to earthling men of mighty arm, skilled in violent warfare, for military aid. So they did not draw close to Jehovah to drink the water of salvation from him as the Source of deliverance.

23. How did the Israelites ‘hew out for themselves cisterns that cannot contain the water,’ and with what outcome?

²³ In that way, figuratively speaking, the faithless Israelites proceeded to “hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot contain the water.” They forsook Jehovah, “the source of living water.” Consequently, no salvation came from him. Disappointingly, the highly militarized world powers of Egypt and Assyria did not fill the “broken cisterns” of the Israelites with the water of salvation from their political enemies.

For abandoning Jehovah their God as the Source of deliverance, the renegade Israelites came under a soul-parching curse.​—Jer. 2:13-18.