NAS - Jeremiah Chapter 17 to 19

17 The Deceitful Heart

¹The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus; With a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart And on the horns of their altars, ² As they remember their children, So they remember their altars and their Asherim By green trees on the high hills. ³O mountain of Mine in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for booty, Your high places for sin throughout your borders. ⁴ And you will, even of yourself, let go of your inheritance That I gave you; And I will make you serve your enemies In the land which you do not know; For you have kindled a fire in My anger Which will burn forever.

⁵Thus says the LORD, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD. ⁶ "For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant. ⁷ "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. ⁸ "For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.

⁹"The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? ¹⁰ "I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. ¹¹ "As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool."

¹²A glorious throne on high from the beginning Is the place of our sanctuary. ¹³O LORD, the hope of Israel, All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the LORD. ¹⁴ Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; Save me and I will be saved, For You are my praise. ¹⁵ Look, they keep saying to me, "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now!" ¹⁶ But as for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd after You, Nor have I longed for the woeful day; You Yourself know that the utterance of my lips Was in Your presence. ¹⁷ Do not be a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of disaster. ¹⁸ Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but as for me, let me not be put to shame; Let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring on them a day of disaster, And crush them with twofold destruction!

The Sabbath Must Be Kept

¹⁹Thus the LORD said to me, "Go and stand in the public gate, through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, as well as in all the gates of Jerusalem; ²⁰and say to them, `Listen to the word of the LORD, kings of Judah, and all Judah and all inhabitants of Jerusalem who come in through these gates: ²¹`Thus says the LORD, "Take heed for yourselves, and do not carry any load on the sabbath day or bring anything in through the gates of Jerusalem. ²²"You shall not bring a load out of your houses on the sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. ²³"Yet they did not listen or incline their ears, but stiffened their necks in order not to listen or take correction.

²⁴"But it will come about, if you listen attentively to Me," declares the LORD, "to bring no load in through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to keep the sabbath day holy by doing no work on it, ²⁵then there will come in through the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. ²⁶"They will come in from the cities of Judah and from the environs of Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the lowland, from the hill country and from the Negev, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of the LORD. ²⁷"But if you do not listen to Me to keep the sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched."'"

18 The Potter and the Clay

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, ²"Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you." ³Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. ⁴But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

⁵Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, ⁶"Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. ⁷"At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; ⁸if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. ⁹"Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; ¹⁰if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. ¹¹"So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, `Thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds."' ¹²"But they will say, `It's hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'

¹³"Therefore thus says the LORD, `Ask now among the nations, Who ever heard the like of this? The virgin of Israel Has done a most appalling thing. ¹⁴`Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the open country? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away? ¹⁵`For My people have forgotten Me, They burn incense to worthless gods And they have stumbled from their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in bypaths, Not on a highway, ¹⁶ To make their land a desolation, An object of perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. ¹⁷ `Like an east wind I will scatter them Before the enemy; I will show them My back and not My face In the day of their calamity.'"

¹⁸Then they said, "Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words."

¹⁹Do give heed to me, O LORD, And listen to what my opponents are saying! ²⁰Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good on their behalf, So as to turn away Your wrath from them. ²¹ Therefore, give their children over to famine And deliver them up to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be smitten to death, Their young men struck down by the sword in battle. ²² May an outcry be heard from their houses, When You suddenly bring raiders upon them; For they have dug a pit to capture me And hidden snares for my feet. ²³Yet You, O LORD, know All their deadly designs against me; Do not forgive their iniquity Or blot out their sin from Your sight. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!

19 The Broken Jar

¹Thus says the LORD, "Go and buy a potter's earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests. ²"Then go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you, ³and say, `Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle. ⁴"Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind; ⁶therefore, behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter. ⁷"I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. ⁸"I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters. ⁹"I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them."'

¹⁰"Then you are to break the jar in the sight of the men who accompany you ¹¹and say to them, `Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter's vessel, which cannot again be repaired; and they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place for burial. ¹²"This is how I will treat this place and its inhabitants," declares the LORD, "so as to make this city like Topheth. ¹³"The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like the place Topheth, because of all the houses on whose rooftops they burned sacrifices to all the heavenly host and poured out drink offerings to other gods."'"

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD'S house and said to all the people: ¹⁵"Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, `Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.'"