Jeremiah 17 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Late seventh century BC, under Jehoiakim
Location
Jerusalem, ending at the city gates where goods entered and legal business was done
Audience
The people of Judah, including the kings who passed through those gates
Situation
Jeremiah says Judah's guilt is cut into the nation's heart with an iron tool, contrasts a shrub in a salt waste with a tree planted by water, and prays for vindication against those mocking him. He is then sent to stand at the city gates and enforce the Sabbath rest.
Key Background
An iron stylus tipped with hard stone was the tool for cutting permanently into rock, the medium used for royal monuments meant to outlast the king, so the image says the record of this guilt cannot be erased. The horns of the altar, the raised corners a person grabbed to claim sanctuary, are named as the place the inscription appears, which turns the refuge itself into the evidence. Gates were the commercial and judicial centre of a walled city, where merchants unloaded and elders heard cases, so posting a Sabbath order there targets trade at its point of entry rather than making a general appeal to piety.
Judah's is carved with an stylus, etched with a diamond point into the tablet of their hearts and onto the horns of their —
even their children remember their altars and their poles beside the green trees on the high hills —
my mountain out in the open, your wealth and all your treasures I will hand over as plunder, along with your because of the failures committed throughout your territory.
You will lose your grip on the inheritance I gave you. I will make you serve your enemies in a land you've never known, because you have lit a fire in my anger that will burn forever.
This is what Yahweh says: "Cursed is the person who trusts in human strength, who makes and their source of power, and whose heart turns away from Yahweh.
That person will be like a in the wasteland — they won't see anything good coming. They'll live in the scorched places of the wilderness, in where no one lives.
"But is for the person who trusts in Yahweh, whose is in Yahweh alone.
They are like a tree beside streams of water that sends out its roots toward the current. It when the heat comes — its leaves stay green. In a drought year it has no worries and never stops producing fruit.
The human is more than anything else and — who can even understand it?
"I, Yahweh, the heart and examine the mind, to give each person what they deserve — what their actions have earned them."
Like a that broods over eggs it didn't lay, so is the person who gets rich by unjust means. Halfway through life it will all slip away, and in the end they'll be exposed as a fool.
A throne of lifted high from the beginning, is the we for
Yahweh, you are the of Israel! Everyone who abandons you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be in the dust, because they have abandoned Yahweh, the of
Heal me, Yahweh, and I will be healed. Rescue me, and I will be rescued. Because you are the one I praise.
Look—people keep saying to me, "Where is the word of Yahweh? Let it come already!"
But I haven't run away from being your shepherd, and I haven't wished for the day of disaster. You know that — whatever came from my lips was right there in front of you.
Don't become a source of terror to me — you are my in the day of disaster.
Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but don't let me be shamed. Let them be terrified, but don't let me be terrified. Bring the day of disaster on them and shatter them with
This is what Yahweh said to me: "Go and stand at the — the one the kings of Judah use to enter and leave — and then at all the other gates of Jerusalem.
Tell them: 'Listen to the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah, all the people of Judah, and everyone living in Jerusalem who comes through these gates.
This is what Yahweh says: Watch yourselves — do not carry any load on the day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem.
Do not carry a load out of your houses on the and do not do any work. the for just as I commanded your ancestors.
But they didn't listen or pay attention. Instead, they their and refused to listen or accept correction.
But if you truly listen to me (this is and stop bringing loads through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath for God by not doing any work on it,
then kings who sit on will continue to enter through the gates of this city, riding in chariots and on horses — they and their officials — accompanied by the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem. And this city will be inhabited forever.
People will come from the towns of Judah, from the areas around Jerusalem, from the territory of Benjamin, from the foothills, from the hill country, and from the southern desert, bringing sacrifices, grain frankincense, and thank to the of
But if you don't listen to me and keep the Sabbath day for God, if you carry loads and bring them through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath, then I will set its gates on fire, and it will the fortified buildings of Jerusalem and will not be put out.'"