Jeremiah 17–19

Judah’s Guilty Heart

17“The sin of the people of Judah is written with an iron tool.

Their sins were cut with a hard point into the stone that is their hearts.

Their sins were cut into the corners of their altars.

²Even their children remember

their altars to idols and their Asherah idols

beside the green trees

and on the high hills.

³My mountain in the open country

and your wealth and treasures

I will give away to other people.

I will give away the places of worship in your country,

because you sinned by worshiping there.

⁴You will lose the land I gave you,

and it is your own fault.

I will let your enemies take you as their slaves

to a land you have never known.

This is because you have made my anger burn like a hot fire,

and it will burn forever.”

Trusting in Humans or God

⁵This is what the Lord says:

“A curse is placed on those who trust other people,

who depend on humans for strength,

who have stopped trusting the Lord.

⁶They are like a bush in a desert

that grows in a land where no one lives,

a hot and dry land with bad soil.

They don’t know about the good things God can give.

⁷“But the person who trusts in the Lord will be blessed.

The Lord will show him that he can be trusted.

⁸He will be strong, like a tree planted near water

that sends its roots by a stream.

It is not afraid when the days are hot;

its leaves are always green.

It does not worry in a year when no rain comes;

it always produces fruit.

⁹“More than anything else, a person’s mind is evil

and cannot be healed.

Who can understand it?

¹⁰But I, the Lord, look into a person’s heart

and test the mind.

So I can decide what each one deserves;

I can give each one the right payment for what he does.”

¹¹Like a bird hatching an egg it did not lay,

so are the people who get rich by cheating.

When their lives are half finished, they will lose their riches.

At the end of their lives, it will be clear they were fools.

¹²From the beginning, our Temple has been honored

as a glorious throne for God.

¹³Lord, hope of Israel,

those who leave you will be shamed.

People who quit following the Lord will be like a name written in the dust,

because they have left the Lord, the spring of living water.

Jeremiah’s Third Complaint

¹⁴Lord, heal me, and I will truly be healed.

Save me, and I will truly be saved.

You are the one I praise.

¹⁵The people of Judah keep asking me,

“Where is the word from the Lord?

Let’s see that message come true!”

¹⁶Lord, I didn’t run away from being the shepherd you wanted.

I didn’t want the terrible day to come.

You know everything I have said;

you see all that is happening.

¹⁷Don’t be a terror to me.

I run to you for safety in times of trouble.

¹⁸Make those who are hurting me be ashamed,

but don’t bring shame to me.

Let them be terrified,

but keep me from terror.

Bring the day of disaster on my enemies.

Destroy them, and destroy them again.

Keeping the Sabbath Holy

¹⁹This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and stand at the People’s Gate of Jerusalem, where the kings of Judah go in and out. And then go to all the other gates of Jerusalem. ²⁰Say to them there: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah, all you people of Judah, and all who live in Jerusalem, who come through these gates into the city. ²¹This is what the Lord says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. ²²Don’t take a load out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work on that day. But keep the Sabbath as a holy day, as I commanded your ancestors. ²³But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were very stubborn and did not listen. I punished them, but it didn’t do any good. ²⁴But you must be careful to obey me, says the Lord. You must not bring a load through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath, but you must keep the Sabbath as a holy day and not do any work on that day.

²⁵“ ‘If you obey this command, kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of Jerusalem with their officers. They will come riding in chariots and on horses, along with the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And the city of Jerusalem will have people living in it forever. ²⁶People will come to Jerusalem from the villages around it, from the towns of Judah, from the land of Benjamin, from the western hills, from the mountains, and from southern Judah. They will all bring to the Temple of the Lord burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings, incense, and offerings to show thanks to God. ²⁷But you must obey me and keep the Sabbath day as a holy day. You must not carry any loads into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. If you don’t obey me, I will start a fire at the gates of Jerusalem, and it will burn until it burns even the strong towers. And it will not be put out.’ ”

The Potter and the Clay

18This is the word the Lord spoke to Jeremiah: ²“Go down to the potter’s house, and I will give you my message there.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the potter’s wheel. ⁴He was using his hands to make a pot from clay, but something went wrong with it. So he used that clay to make another pot the way he wanted it to be.

⁵Then the Lord spoke his word to me: ⁶“Family of Israel, can’t I do the same thing with you?” says the Lord. “You are in my hands like the clay in the potter’s hands. ⁷There may come a time when I will speak about a nation or a kingdom that I will pull up by its roots or that I will pull down to destroy it. ⁸But if the people of that nation stop doing the evil they have done, I will change my mind and not carry out my plans to bring disaster to them. ⁹There may come another time when I will speak about a nation that I will build up and plant. ¹⁰But if I see it doing evil by not obeying me, I will change my mind and not carry out my plans to do good for them.

¹¹“So, say this to the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: I am preparing disaster for you and making plans against you. So stop doing evil. Change your ways and do what is right.’ ¹²But the people of Judah will answer, ‘It won’t do any good to try! We will continue to do what we want. Each of us will do what his stubborn, evil heart wants!’ ”

¹³So this is what the Lord says:

“Ask the people in other nations this question:

‘Have you ever heard anything like this?’

The people of Israel have done a horrible thing.

¹⁴The snow on the mountains of Lebanon

never melts from the rocks.

Its cool, flowing streams

do not dry up.

¹⁵But my people have forgotten me.

They burn incense to worthless idols

and have stumbled in what they do

and in the old ways of their ancestors.

They walk along back roads

and on poor highways.

¹⁶So Judah’s country will become an empty desert.

People will not stop making fun of it.

They will shake their heads as they pass by;

they will be shocked at how the country was destroyed.

¹⁷Like a strong east wind,

I will scatter them before their enemies.

At that awful time they will not see me coming to help them;

they will see me leaving.”

Jeremiah’s Fourth Complaint

¹⁸Then the people said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah. Surely the teaching of the law by the priest will not be lost. We will still have the advice from the wise teachers and the words of the prophets. So let’s ruin him by telling lies about him. We won’t pay attention to anything he says.”

¹⁹Lord, listen to me.

Listen to what my accusers are saying!

²⁰Good should not be paid back with evil,

but they have dug a pit in order to kill me.

Remember that I stood before you

and asked you to do good things for these people

and to turn your anger away from them.

²¹So now, let their children starve,

and let their enemies kill them with swords.

Let their wives lose their children and husbands.

Let the men from Judah be put to death

and the young men be killed with swords in battle.

²²Let them cry out in their houses

when you bring an enemy against them suddenly.

Let all this happen, because my enemies have dug

a pit to capture me and have hidden traps for my feet.

²³Lord, you know

about all their plans to kill me.

Don’t forgive their crimes

or erase their sins from your mind.

Make them fall from their places;

punish them while you are angry.

Judah Is like a Broken Jar

19This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. ²Take some of the elders of the people and the priests, and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the front of the Potsherd Gate. There speak the words I tell you. ³Say, ‘Kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem, listen to this message from the Lord. This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: I will soon bring a disaster on this place that will amaze and frighten everyone who hears about it. ⁴The people of Judah have quit following me. They have made this a place for foreign gods. They have burned sacrifices to other gods that neither they, nor their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah had ever known before. They filled this place with the blood of innocent people. ⁵They have built places on hilltops to worship Baal, where they burn their children in the fire to Baal. That is something I did not command or speak about; it never even entered my mind. ⁶Now people call this place the Valley of Ben Hinnom or Topheth, but the days are coming, says the Lord, when people will call it the Valley of Killing.

⁷“ ‘At this place I will ruin the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. The enemy will chase them, and I will have them killed with swords. I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild animals. ⁸I will completely destroy this city. People will make fun of it and shake their heads when they pass by. They will be shocked when they see how the city was destroyed. ⁹An enemy army will surround the city and will not let anyone go out to get food. I will make the people so hungry that they will eat the bodies of their own sons and daughters, and then they will begin to eat each other.’

¹⁰“While the people with you are watching, break that jar. ¹¹Then say this: ‘The Lord All-Powerful says: I will break this nation and this city just as…