Jeremiah 17

1The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts and on the horns of your altars.

2Their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles beside the green trees on the high hills.

3My mountain in the open country—your wealth and all your treasures I will give as plunder, and your high places too, because of sin throughout all your territory.

4Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will make you serve your enemies in a land you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger that will burn forever.

5This is what Yahweh says: Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from Yahweh.

6He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see it when good comes. He will live in the parched places of the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives.

7Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, whose trust is Yahweh.

8He will be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by a stream. It will not see it when heat comes; its leaves stay green. It is not anxious in a year of drought, and it does not stop bearing fruit.

9The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and it is incurably sick. Who can know it?

10I, Yahweh, search the heart and test the mind, to give to each person according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

11Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the one who gains riches unjustly. In the middle of his days they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool.

12A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.

13Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from me will be written in the dust, for they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living water.

14Heal me, Yahweh, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for you are my praise.

15Look, they keep saying to me, “Where is the word of Yahweh? Let it come now!”

16But I have not run away from being a shepherd who follows you, and I have not longed for the day of disaster. You know what has come from my lips; it was spoken before you.

17Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

18Let my persecutors be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame; let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified. Bring on them the day of disaster; destroy them with double destruction.

19This is what Yahweh said to me: “Go and stand in the People’s Gate, through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem.

20Say to them: Hear the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah, all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter through these gates.

21This is what Yahweh says: Be careful, for the sake of your lives, not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem.

22Do not carry a load out of your houses on the Sabbath day or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors.

23Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they stiffened their necks so as not to listen or accept correction.

24But if you listen carefully to me, declares Yahweh, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy by doing no work on it,

25then kings and officials who sit on David’s throne will come in through the gates of this city, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials, the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever.

26People will come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the foothills, from the hill country, and from the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of Yahweh.

27But if you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load as you come in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will set fire to its gates, and it will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem and will not be quenched.”