Yahweh’s promise to punish Judah

17 Yahweh said, “It is as though a list of the sins committed by the people of Judah is engraved with an iron chisel, or engraved using the fine point of a very hard stone,

on the altars where they worship idols.

And it is as though this list is engraved on their inner beings!

2 Even their children are happy to go to the altars to worship their gods, and to the poles that represent the goddess Asherah at which their parents worshiped,

shrines that are underneath all the big trees

and on all the high hills.

3 So, I will allow your enemies to capture Zion, your holy hill,

and all your wealth and your ◄treasures/valuable things►,

and even the shrines on all those hills,

because of the sins that you people have committed throughout your land.

4 The wonderful land that I gave to you will no longer belong to you.

I will tell your enemies to take you to a land that you do not know about,

and you will become their slaves.

I will do that because I am extremely angry with you;

my being angry is like a fire that will burn forever.”

5 This is also what Yahweh says:

“I will curse/condemn those who trust in human beings to help them,

those who rely on their own strength

and turn away from me.

6 They are like dry bushes in the desert,

they are people who will not experience any good things.

Those people will live in the barren desert

in a salty area, where nothing grows.

7 But I am pleased with those who trust in me, Yahweh,

and who confidently expect me to take care of them.

8 Those people are like [SIM] fruit trees that have been planted along a riverbank,

trees that have roots that go down into the wet ground beside the water.

They are trees whose leaves remain green when it becomes hot,

trees that continue to bear fruit when there are many months in which there is no rain.

9 Human minds are extremely corrupt/deceitful,

and you cannot change that.

It is also completely impossible [RHQ] for anyone to understand that.

10 But I, Yahweh, search what is in everyone’s inner being,

and I examine what they are thinking.

I will give all people rewards,

what they deserve for what they have done.”

11 I, Jeremiah, agree, because I know that people who become rich by doing things that are unjust

are like birds that hatch eggs that they ◄did not lay/stole from another nest►.

So, when those people have lived only half of the years that they expect to live, their wealth will disappear.

Then other people will realize that those rich people have been foolish.

12 Yahweh, your temple is like a glorious throne

that is still on a high hill.

13 You are the one whom we Israeli people confidently expect to bless us,

and all those who turn away from you will be disgraced.

Their names will be written only in the dust, and will soon disappear,

because they have abandoned you, who are like [MET] a fountain where people obtain fresh water.

14 Yahweh, please heal me, because if you heal me, I will truly be healed.

If you rescue me, I will truly be safe,

because you are the only one whom I praise.

15 People often ridicule me and say,

“You tell us messages that you say came from Yahweh,

but ◄why have the things that you predicted not happened?/those predictions have not come true!►” [RHQ]

16 Yahweh, you appointed me to take care of your people like a shepherd takes care of his sheep [MET]; I have not abandoned that work,

and you know that I have not previously wanted this time of disaster to come to people who ridicule me.

And you know everything that I have said [MTY] to your people.

17 Do not cause me to be terrified!

When disasters come/occur, you are the one to whom I will go to be safe.

18 So now, cause those who ◄persecute me/cause me to suffer► to be ashamed and dismayed,

but do not do things to me that will cause me to be ashamed and dismayed.

Cause them to be terrified!

Do to them many things that will completely destroy them!