Jeremiah
17 Judah’s sin is written with iron pen, engraved with diamond-tipped scraper, on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars, 2 as their sons remember their altars and asherahs by verdant trees on high hills, 3 mountains of the countryside. Your means and your reserve I will give for plunder in payment for all your sins throughout your territory, 4* and you shall forgo your good things out of your estate that I gave you, and I will enslave you to your enemies in a country you do not know; for you have lighted a fire in my nostrils that will burn forever.
5* Says Jehovah, Cursed is the man that trusts to mankind and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Jehovah; 6 and he will be like a savin-bush in the desert that does not see when good comes, but occupies parched stretches of wilderness, uninhabited alkali country. 7 Blessed is the man that trusts to Jehovah and has Jehovah for his reliance; 8* and he will be like a tree set out by water and sending its roots along a stream, that does not see when heat comes, but its leaves are verdant, and in a year of shortage it feels no anxiety and does not desist from producing fruit.
9* The heart is trickier than anything and in a desperate state; who understands it? 10 I Jehovah examine brains and test hearts, to give to each man what corresponds to his courses and to the fruit of his practices.
11** One who makes a fortune without a right is a partridge, that has called young together without being their mother; in the middle of his days it will leave him, and in his latter days he will be glum.
12 A throne of glory, lofty from the first, is the place of our sanctuary. 13* Hope of Israel, Jehovah, all that leave you will be put to shame and those who turn aside from your well will come to humiliation, because they have left a fount of living water, Jehovah.
14 Heal me, Jehovah, that I may be healed; save me, that I may be saved; for you are my praise. 15 Here they are saying to me “Where is Jehovah’s word? let it come true,” 16* and I have not been pressing you for disaster, and have not desired a hopeless day, you know; what came out of my lips was to your face. 17* Do not expose me to dismay, you my shelter in a day of distress. 18 Let my persecutors be put to shame, and not me; let them and not me be dismayed. Bring upon them a day of disaster, and break them in double breaking.
19* Said Jehovah to me, Go and stand in the Benjamin gate by which the kings of Judah go in and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, 20 and say to them “Hear Jehovah’s word, kings of Judah and all Judah and all inhabitants of Jerusalem that come in at these gates: 21 Says Jehovah, Look out for your lives and do not carry a load on the sabbath day and bring it in at the gates of Jerusalem; 22 and you shall not take a load out of your houses on the sabbath day, nor do any work, but keep the sabbath day sacred as I commanded your fathers— 23 but they did not listen nor turn their ears, but stiffened up their necks, not listening and not taking a lesson. 24 And if you do listen to me, quoth Jehovah, not bringing a load in at the gates of this city on the sabbath day, not doing any work on it, 25 there will come in at the gates of this city kings and generals who sit on David’s throne, who ride with chariots and ponies, they and their generals, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever; 26 and they will come from the cities of Judah and from the environs of Jerusalem and from the country of Benjamin and from the lowland and from the highland and from the South, bringing burnt-offering and sacrifice and grain-offering and frankincense, and bringers of thank-offering to Jehovah’s house. 27 But if you do not listen to me, keeping the sabbath day sacred and not taking up a load and coming into the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, I will set a fire in its gates and it will eat up the palaces of Jerusalem and will not die down.”