Judah’s Sin and Punishment

17 “The sin of Judah is awritten with a bpen of iron;

With the point of a diamond it is cengraved

On the tablet of their heart,

And on the horns of your altars,

2 While their children remember

Their altars and their dwooden 1images

By the green trees on the high hills.

3 O My mountain in the field,

I will give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures,

And your high places of sin within all your borders.

4 And you, even yourself,

Shall let go of your heritage which I gave you;

And I will cause you to serve your enemies

In ethe land which you do not know;

For fyou have kindled a fire in My anger which shall burn forever.”

5 Thus says the Lord:

g“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

And makes hflesh his 2strength,

Whose heart departs from the Lord.

6 For he shall be ilike a shrub in the desert,

And jshall not see when good comes,

But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,

kIn a salt land which is not inhabited.

7 “Blessed lis the man who trusts in the Lord,

And whose hope is the Lord.

8 For he shall be mlike a tree planted by the waters,

Which spreads out its roots by the river,

And will not 3fear when heat comes;

But its leaf will be green,

And will not be anxious in the year of drought,

Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

9 “The nheart is deceitful above all things,

And 4desperately wicked;

Who can know it?

10 I, the Lord, osearch the heart,

I test the 5mind,

pEven to give every man according to his ways,

According to the fruit of his doings.

11 “As a partridge that 6broods but does not hatch,

So is he who gets riches, but not by right;

It qwill leave him in the midst of his days,

And at his end he will be ra fool.”

12 A glorious high throne from the beginning

Is the place of our sanctuary.

13 O Lord, sthe hope of Israel,

tAll who forsake You shall be ashamed.

“Those who depart from Me

Shall be uwritten in the earth,

Because they have forsaken the Lord,

The vfountain of living waters.”