Close on the raised stone horn at one corner of an altar in a dim courtyard, an iron stylus with a hard pointed tip lying across the stone in raking morning light.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 17

The book doesn’t date this oracle. What is written so deep in you that only God could change it?

27 verses≈ 6 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessionsChapter 17
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Sin and Punishment of Judah

God

“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus,

engraved with a diamond point

on the tablets of their hearts

and on the horns of their altars.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God

A bare hilltop shrine in the Judean hills: a tall carved wooden pole stands beside a spreading green tree, a small rough stone altar before it, wind in the leaves; nobody there.

Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles

by the green trees and on the high hills.

God

O My mountain in the countryside,

I will give over your wealth

and all your treasures as plunder,

because of the sin of your high places,

within all your borders.

And you yourself will relinquish

the inheritance that I gave you.

I will enslave you to your enemies

in a land that you do not know,

for you have kindled My anger;

it will burn forever.”

God

This is what the LORD says:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind,

who makes mere flesh his strength

and turns his heart from the LORD.

God

Glaring noon on a white salt flat in the Arabah: one stunted gray juniper shrub, and nothing else alive to the horizon.

He will be like a shrub in the desert;

he will not see when prosperity comes.

He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

God

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,

whose confidence is in Him.

Jeremiah 17:7

God

High summer in a dry valley: one great green tree heavy with fruit, its roots gripping the bank of a clear running water channel, the hills beyond burned pale.

He is like a tree planted by the waters

that sends out its roots toward the stream.

It does not fear when the heat comes,

and its leaves are always green.

It does not worry in a year of drought,

nor does it cease to produce fruit.

God

I, the LORD, search the heart;

I examine the mind

to reward a man according to his way,

by what his deeds deserve.

God

A sand partridge sits low on a shallow scrape of eggs among pale stones on a dry slope, alert, the wilderness beyond.

Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay

is the man who makes a fortune unjustly.

In the middle of his days his riches will desert him,

and in the end he will be the fool.”

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah 17:5–8 sets two men side by side. Look back at the second picture.

What is the man who trusts in the LORD like?

Jeremiah’s Prayer for Deliverance

Jeremiah

A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,

is the place of our sanctuary.

Jeremiah

A cold spring pours clear from a cleft in the rock into a worn stone basin among ferns, and beside it runs a dusty path.

O LORD, the hope of Israel,

all who abandon You will be put to shame.

All who turn away will be written in the dust,

for they have abandoned the LORD,

the fountain of living water.

Jeremiah

Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;

save me, and I will be saved,

for You are my praise.

Jeremiah

Behold, they keep saying to me,

“Where is the word of the LORD?

Let it come now!”

Jeremiah

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd;

I have not desired the day of despair.

You know that the utterance of my lips

was spoken in Your presence.

Jeremiah

Do not become a terror to me;

You are my refuge in the day of disaster.

Jeremiah

Let my persecutors be put to shame,

but do not let me be put to shame.

Let them be terrified,

but do not let me be terrified.

Bring upon them the day of disaster

and shatter them with double destruction.

Pray

Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved. You search my heart and know it better than I do. Keep my roots in You, the fountain of living water. Amen.

Restoring the Sabbath

God

Morning traffic in a gate of Jerusalem: donkeys with loads, women with jars, elders on stone benches, and far off in the gateway a lean man in a dark mantle seen from behind.

This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at all the other gates of Jerusalem.

God

Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates.

God

This is what the LORD says: Take heed for yourselves; do not carry a load or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

God

Sabbath morning in a quiet lane of Jerusalem: loaded baskets and bundles set down by a closed house door, the gate at the lane's end still, a family walking toward the temple height.

You must not carry a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day, but you must keep the Sabbath day holy, just as I commanded your forefathers.

God

Yet they would not listen or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and would not listen or receive My discipline.

God

If, however, you listen carefully to Me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath day holy, and do no work on it, then kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city.

God

They will sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses with their officials, along with the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever.

God

Morning on the road up to Jerusalem: families from the hill country lead lambs and carry baskets of grain and small bags of frankincense, the temple on the height above.

And people will come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, and from the foothills, the hill country, and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the LORD.

0:16

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.’”

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 17

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A verse to carry with you

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him.

Jeremiah 17:7

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