Old Testament · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 17

The Sin and Punishment of Judah

1The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, engraved on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars.
2When their sons remember their altars and their Asherim by the leafy tree, on the high hills.
3O my mountain in the field, your wealth, all your treasures I will give for spoil, your high places, for sin throughout all your borders.
4And you shall let go, even of yourself, from your inheritance that I gave you; and I will make you serve^a your enemies in a land that you do not know; for a fire you have kindled in my nostril; forever it shall burn.

5Thus said the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in man^b, and makes flesh^c his arm, and whose heart turns aside from the LORD.

6And he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; and he shall dwell in parched places in the wilderness, a salt land that is not inhabited.
7Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose trust the LORD is.
8And he shall be like a tree planted by waters, and by a stream it sends out its roots, and it shall not see when heat comes, and its leaf shall be green; and in a year of drought it shall not be anxious, and shall not cease from yielding fruit.
9The heart is deceitful above all, and desperately sick it is — who can know it?
10I, the LORD, search the heart, test the kidneys, even to give to each man^d according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
11As a partridge that broods over what it did not hatch, so is he who makes riches but not by judgment^e; in the midst of his days they will leave him, and in his end he will be a fool.

Jeremiah’s Prayer for Deliverance

12A throne of glory, on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.
13Hope of Israel, the LORD! All who forsake you shall be ashamed; those who turn from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the fountain of living^f waters, the LORD.
14Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me^g, and I shall be saved; for my praise are you.
15Behold, they are saying to me: "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now."
16And I have not hastened away from being a shepherd after you, and the woeful day I have not desired; you know it; that which came from my lips was before your face.
17Do not be to me a terror; you are my refuge in the day of evil.
18Let my persecutors be ashamed, but let not me be ashamed; let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed; bring upon them the day of evil, and with double destruction destroy them.

Restoring the Shabbat

(Nehemiah 13:15–22)

19Thus said the LORD to me: Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem.

20And you shall say to them: Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. 21Thus said the LORD: Take heed for your souls^h, and do not bear a burden on the day of the Shabbat, and bring it not in by the gates of Jerusalem. 22And you shall not carry out a burden from your houses on the day of the Shabbat, and you shall do no work; but you shall sanctify the day of the Shabbat, as I commandedⁱ your fathers. 23But they did not hear, and did not incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, so as not to hear, and not to receive correction.

24And it shall be, if you diligently hear me, declares the LORD, to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the day of the Shabbat, and to sanctify the day of the Shabbat, to do no work in it, 25then there shall enter by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall be inhabited forever. 26And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the mountain, and from the Negev, bringing burnt offering, and sacrifice, and meal offering, and frankincense, and bringing thanksgiving, to the house of the LORD.

27But if you will not hear me to sanctify the day of the Shabbat, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the day of the Shabbat, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.