Jeremiah 17

1Judah's sin is inscribed with an iron pen and a diamond point, engraved on the tablet of their heart and the horns of your altars.

2when their children remember their altars and Asherim beside lush trees upon lofty hills.

3My mountain in the open country, your wealth and all your treasures I will hand over as plunder—your high places because of sin across all your borders.

4You will abandon your inheritance that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in the land you have not known, for you have kindled a fire in my anger that will burn forever.

5Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns from Yahweh.

6He shall be like a tamarisk in the desert and shall not see good when it comes, but shall dwell in parched places in the wilderness, a salt land where nothing dwells.

7Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and Yahweh is his confidence.

8He will be like a tree planted beside streams, stretching out its roots by a river, neither dreading nor noticing when heat arrives, but its leaf flourishing; even in a year of drought, he will not grow anxious nor cease bearing fruit.

9The heart is deceitful more than anything, and it is incurably sick—who can know it?

10I, Yahweh, search the heart and test the mind, to give to each man according to his way, according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

11Like a partridge that gathers a brood she did not bear, so is one who acquires riches unjustly; midway through his days they forsake him, and at his end he becomes a fool.

12A throne of glory on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

13Yahweh, Israel's hope, all who forsake you will be put to shame; those who depart from me and turn aside will be inscribed on the ground, because they have forsaken the spring of living waters, even Yahweh.

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

15See, they say to me, "Where is the word of Yahweh? Let it come now."

16But I have not hurried from shepherding after you, nor desired the desperate day—you know: what came from my lips stood right before your face.

17Do not dismay me; you are my refuge in the day of adversity.

18Let my pursuers be put to shame, but let me not be put to shame; let them be terrified, but let me not be terrified; bring upon them the day of calamity, and break them with double destruction.

19Thus Yahweh said to me: "Go, stand in the gate of the sons of the people, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they leave, and in all the gates of Jerusalem."

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

21Thus says Yahweh: Guard your lives and carry no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it through the gates of Jerusalem.

22Do not carry a burden out from your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but sanctify the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers.

23But they did not listen nor bow their ear, but hardened their necks so as not to hear or accept discipline.

24And it will be, if you listen diligently to me, declares Yahweh, that you bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but consecrate the Sabbath day, doing no work at all on it.

25Kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city, sitting on David's throne and riding in chariots and on horses—they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem—and this city will remain forever.

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

27But if you do not heed me to sanctify the Sabbath day, and refrain from lifting a burden or entering through Jerusalem's gates on the Sabbath, then I will ignite a fire in its gates, and it will consume Jerusalem's palaces without being quenched.