Jeremiah 17

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

²"while their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles beside the green trees on the high hills. ^a a v2 Asherah poles were carved wooden objects set up for the worship of Asherah, a Canaanite fertility goddess. ³My mountain in the open country, your wealth and all your treasures I will hand over as plunder, your high places too, because of the sin throughout your territory. ⁴By your own hand you will lose the inheritance I gave you, and 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 our Father says: Cursed is the one who trusts in mere humans, who relies on human strength, and whose heart turns away from me. ⁶He will be like a bush in the wasteland that never finds relief even when it comes, dwelling in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. ⁷But blessed is the one who trusts in me, whose confidence is in me. ⁸He will be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It has no fear when heat comes; its leaves stay green. It is not anxious in the year of drought and never stops bearing fruit. ⁹The heart is more deceitful than anything else and beyond cure—who can understand it? ¹⁰I, your Father, search the heart and test the mind, to repay each person according to their ways, according to what their deeds deserve. ¹¹Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is the one who gains riches unjustly. At midlife the riches will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool."

¹²A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. ¹³Our Father, hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have abandoned our Father, the spring of living water.

¹⁴Heal me, my Father, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. ¹⁵Look, they keep saying to me, "Where is the word of God? Let it come now!" ¹⁶But I have not run away from being a shepherd in your service, nor have I longed for the day of despair. You know what passed my lips; it lay open before you. ¹⁷Do not become a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster. ¹⁸Let my persecutors be put to shame, but not me; let them be shattered, but not me. Bring on them the day of disaster; shatter them with double destruction.

The Father Calls for Sabbath Faithfulness

¹⁹What our Father told me: Go stand at the People's Gate, where Judah's kings come and go, and at all Jerusalem's gates,

²⁰and tell them: Hear the word of our Father, kings of Judah, all Judah, and everyone in Jerusalem who enters these gates. ²¹This is what our Father says: Guard your lives—carry no load on the Sabbath, or bring one through Jerusalem's gates. ²²Don't carry a load from your houses on the Sabbath, or do any work, and keep the Sabbath holy, as I commanded your ancestors. ²³They would not listen or pay attention; they stiffened their necks, refusing to hear or accept correction. ²⁴But if you truly listen to me, declares our Father, and bring no load through this city's gates on the Sabbath, and keep the Sabbath holy, doing no work on it, ²⁵then kings and princes who sit on David's throne will enter this city's gates, riding chariots and horses—they, their officials, the men of Judah, and Jerusalem's residents—and this city will remain inhabited forever. ²⁶People will come from Judah's towns, Jerusalem's outskirts, Benjamin's land, lowlands, hills, and Negev, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings, incense, and thank offerings to our Father's house. ²⁷But if you won't listen to me—keep the Sabbath holy, carry no load through Jerusalem's gates on the Sabbath—I'll light a fire in its gates that can't be put out, consuming Jerusalem's palaces.