1The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, and with the point of a diamond. It is carved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars.
2Their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees on the high hills.
3My mountain in the open country, I will give your wealth and all your treasures to be plundered, and your high places too, because of sin throughout all your borders.
4You yourself will let go of the land I gave you to keep. I will make you serve your enemies in a land you do not know. For you have lit a fire in my anger, and it will burn for ever.
5This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the LORD."
6He will be like a bush in the desert. He will not see good when it comes. He will live in the dry places of the wilderness, in a salty land where no one lives.
7Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD.
8He will be like a tree planted by the waters, that spreads out its roots by the river. It will not be afraid when heat comes, but its leaf will stay green. It will not be anxious in the year of drought, and it will never stop bearing fruit.
9The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?
10"I the LORD search the heart. I test the inner thoughts, to give every man what his ways deserve, and what the fruit of his deeds deserves."
11As a partridge sits on eggs and does not hatch them, so is the man who gets riches, but not honestly. He will leave them in the middle of his days, and at his end he will be a fool.
12A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
13LORD, the hope of Israel, all who leave you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from me will be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
14Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved, for you are my praise.
15Look, they say to me, "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now."
16As for me, I have not run away from being a shepherd who follows you. I have not wanted the day of disaster. You know it. What came out of my lips was before your face.
17Do not be a terror to me. You are my hope in the day of trouble.
18Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be dismayed, but do not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of trouble, and destroy them with double destruction.
19This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, where the kings of Judah come in and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem."
20Say to them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all who live in Jerusalem and come in by these gates.
21This is what the LORD says: Take care for your own sake. Carry no load on the sabbath day, and do not bring one in through the gates of Jerusalem.
22"Do not carry a load out of your houses on the sabbath day, and do not do any work. Keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.'"
23But they did not obey. They did not turn their ear to listen. They made their necks stiff, so they would not hear or take instruction.
24"If you listen carefully to me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but keep the sabbath day holy and do no work on it,"
25then kings and princes will come in through the gates of this city, sitting on the throne of David. They will ride in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the people who live in Jerusalem. And this city will remain for ever.
26People will come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south. They will bring burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and grain offerings, and incense, and they will bring sacrifices of praise to the house of the LORD.
27"But if you will not listen to me, and will not keep the sabbath day holy, and will carry a load and come in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will light a fire in its gates. It will burn up the palaces of Jerusalem, and it will not be put out."