Jeremiah 17

¹ ‘The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, engraved with a diamond point on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars,

² as evidence against them (their altars and their sacred poles, by every spreading tree, on the high hills,

³ on the mountains, in the open countryside). ‘Your wealth and your treasures I will hand over to plunder as payment for all your sins throughout your territory.

⁴ You will have to relinquish your heritage which I gave you; I will enslave you to your enemies in a country which you do not know, for my anger has kindled a fire that will burn for ever.

⁵ ‘Yahweh says this: ‘A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from Yahweh.

⁶ He is like dry scrub in the wastelands: if good comes, he has no eyes for it, he settles in the parched places of the wilderness, a salt land, uninhabited.

⁷ ‘A blessing on the man who puts his trust in Yahweh, with Yahweh for his hope.

⁸ He is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit.

⁹ ‘The heart is more devious than any other thing, perverse too: who can pierce its secrets?

¹⁰ I, Yahweh, search to the heart, I probe the loins, to give each man what his conduct and his actions deserve.

¹¹ ‘The partridge will hatch eggs it has not laid. Similarly, the man who wins his wealth unjustly: his days half done, he must leave it, proving a fool after all.’

¹² A glorious throne, set high from the beginning, such is our Holy Place.

¹³ Hope of Israel, Yahweh! All who abandon you will be put to shame, those who turn from you will be uprooted from the land, since they have abandoned the fountain of living water.

¹⁴ Heal me, Yahweh, and I shall be really healed, save me, and I shall be saved, for you alone are my hope.

¹⁵ Look, they keep saying to me, ‘Where is the word of Yahweh? Let it come true then!’

¹⁶ But I, I have never urged you to do evil, the day of disaster was no desire of mine, this you know; what came from my lips was not concealed from you.

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

¹⁸ Let my persecutors be confounded, not I, let them, not me, be terrified. On them bring the day of disaster, destroy them, destroy them twice over!

¹⁹ Yahweh said this to me, ‘Go and stand at the Gate of the Sons of the People by which the kings of Judah go in and out – and at all the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰ Say to them, “Listen to the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah, all you people of Judah too, and all you citizens of Jerusalem who pass through these gates.

²¹ Yahweh says this: As you value your lives, on no account carry a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem.

²² Bring no burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, and do no work. Keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors.

²³ They would not hear, would not pay attention, grew so stubborn they would not listen, and would not accept instruction.

²⁴ But if you listen carefully to me – it is Yahweh who speaks – and bring no burden in through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, if you keep the sabbath holy and do no work on that day,

²⁵ then, through the gates of this city, kings occupying the throne of David will continue to make their entry, mounted on chariots and horses, they and their ministers, with the men of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. And this city will be inhabited for ever.

²⁶ They will come from the towns of Judah, from the districts round Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Lowlands, from the highlands, from the Negeb, to offer holocaust and sacrifice, oblation, incense and thanksgiving sacrifice in the Temple of Yahweh.

²⁷ But if you do not listen to my command to keep the sabbath day holy, and not to enter the gates of Jerusalem with burdens on the sabbath day, then I will set fire to its gates; it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched.”‘