Answer
It's common in the prophecies in the Old Testament for God to attach conditions to them, such as, "If you don't repent you are going to experience judgment." A wonderful kind of glimpse at this way that God works with his prophecies is in Jeremiah 18 where you have this symbolic experience where Jeremiah has been told to go down to the potter's house, and he's observing a potter forming clay, and then all of a sudden the clay becomes warped and the potter starts over again. And God draws upon that to give a teaching lesson for a prophecy that Jeremiah is supposed to give, which is that if Israel is told that if they don't repent that they're going to experience judgment. God could change that, because if they do repent, God will change his plan for judgment, if you will, of destroying the pot and remake it now into Israel into a restored community. But on the flipside God says, "If I've promised to bring good to you, but you instead start doing evil," he could change his mind too, and he could bring judgment. So, this is a typical way that prophecy works, where God is framing his call for repentance in light of perspective judgment, but also warning those who think they're destined for a good life that judgment could meet them too if they are not righteous.
Answer by Andrew Abernethy, Ph.D.
Dr. Andrew Abernethy is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College & Graduate School.