Jeremiah 17:2-12

2 Even their children remember their altars to idols and their Asherah idols beside the green trees and on the high hills.

3 My mountain in the open country and your wealth and treasures I will give away to other people. I will give away the places of worship in your country, because you sinned by worshiping there.

4 You will lose the land I gave you, and it is your own fault. I will let your enemies take you as their slaves to a land you have never known. This is because you have made my anger burn like a hot fire, and it will burn forever."

5 This is what the Lord says: "A curse is placed on those who trust other people, who depend on humans for strength, who have stopped trusting the Lord.

6 They are like a bush in a desert that grows in a land where no one lives, a hot and dry land with bad soil. They don't know about the good things God can give.

7 "But the person who trusts in the Lord will be blessed. The Lord will show him that he can be trusted.

8 He will be strong, like a tree planted near water that sends its roots by a stream. It is not afraid when the days are hot; its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year when no rain comes; it always produces fruit.

9 "More than anything else, a person's mind is evil and cannot be healed. No one truly understands it.

10 But I, the Lord, look into a person's heart and test the mind. So I can decide what each one deserves; I can give each one the right payment for what he does."

11 Like a bird hatching an egg it did not lay, so are the people who get rich by cheating. When their lives are half finished, they will lose their riches. At the end of their lives, it will be clear they were fools.

12 From the beginning, our Temple has been honored as a glorious throne for God.

Jeremiah 17:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 17

This chapter is a further prophecy of the destruction of the Jews, with the causes of it, their sins, as their idolatry, which was notorious; of which their own consciences, their altars, and their children, were witnesses, Jer 17:1,2 for which they are threatened with the spoil of their substance and treasure, and discontinuance in their land, Jer 17:3,4 as also their confidence in an arm of flesh, which brought the curse of God upon them, when such are blessed that trust in him; and the difference between those that trust in men and those that trust in the Lord is illustrated by very apt similes, Jer 17:5-8, the source of which vain confidence is the wicked heart of man, known to none but God, Jer 17:9,10 and the vanity of it is exposed by a partridge sitting on eggs without hatching them, Jer 17:11, and their departure from God, by trusting in the creature, and in outward things, is aggravated by their temple being the throne and seat of the divine Majesty; by what God is to his people that trust in him; and by the shame and ruin that follow an apostasy from him, Jer 17:12,13, wherefore the prophet, sensible of his own backslidings, prays to be healed and saved by the Lord, who should have all the praise and glory, Jer 17:14 and then relates the scoffs of the people at the word of God by him, another cause of their ruin; declares his own innocence and integrity; prays for protection and security from fear in a time of trouble; and for confusion, terror, and destruction to his persecutors, Jer 17:15-18, then follows an order to him from the Lord, to go and stand in the gate of the city, and exhort all ranks of men to the observation of the sabbath, with directions how to keep it, which had not been observed by their fathers, and which was another cause of their ruin, Jer 17:19-23, and the chapter is closed with promises of blessings in city, court, and country, in church and state, should they religiously observe the sabbath day; but if they profaned it, the city of Jerusalem, and its palaces, should be burnt with fire, Jer 17:24-27.