 1 The sin of Judah is engraved with an iron stylus. It is carved on the tablet of the heart and on the horns of your altar with the point of a diamond. 2 While their children remember their altars and their Asherahs by the green trees on the high hills. 3 O my mountain in the field. I will give your wealth and all your treasures for prey, and your high places for sin throughout all your borders. 4 You, even through yourself, have let go of the inheritance which I gave you. And I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in my anger, which shall burn forever. 5 Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in men and make flesh their arm and whose heart departs from the Lord. 6 For he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes. But he shall live in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited. 7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and the Lord is their trust. 8 For they shall be like a tree planted by the waters. It sends out its roots by the river and it will not fear when the heat comes. But its foliage shall be green. It is not worried in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit. 9 The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? 10 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. 11 The quail sits on eggs and does not hatch them. In the same way those who get riches, but not by right, shall leave them in the middle of their days. In their end they will be fools. 12 From the beginning, a glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary. 13 O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be ashamed. Those who depart from me will be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. 14 Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed. Save me and I will be saved. For you are my praise. 15 Behold, they say to me, Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now. 16 I have not hurried away from shepherding after you. Nor have I desired the woeful day. You surely know the going forth of my lips before your face. 17 Do not be a terror to me. You are my hope in the day of evil. 18 Let those who persecute me be ashamed. But do not let me be ashamed. Let them be afraid. But do not let me be afraid. Bring the day of evil on them and destroy them with double breaking. 19 So the Lord said to me: Go stand in the gates of the children of the people by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. 20 Say to them, Hear the Word of the Lord, kings of Judah and all Judah and all the people of Jerusalem who enter in by these gates. 21 Thus says the Lord: Take heed to yourselves. Do not carry any burden on the Sabbath day. Do not bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. 22 Do not carry out a burden from your houses on the Sabbath day. Do not do any servile work. But keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. 23 But they did not obey. They did not bow down their ear. But they made their necks stiff so that they might not hear or receive instruction. 24 Carefully listen to me, says the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy, to do no work in it. 25 Then kings and rulers sitting on the throne of David will enter into the gates of this city, riding in chariots and on horses. They and their rulers, the men of Judah, and the people of Jerusalem, and this city will remain forever. 26 They 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 bring sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord. 27 But if you will not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to carry a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates. It will devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it will not be put out.
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