Jeremiah 17 (click here for chapter)

On their heart...
and on your altars...
while children remember their pagan practises.

So you'll get exiled...

This is the material of the first section of this chapter. Then it shifts into a cursing and a blessing of two different categories of people.

1. those who trust in man and make flesh their strength (v.5)
2. those who trust in the LORD and whose hope is the LORD (v.7)

v.9
Deceitful heart:
YHVH is weighing the heart and minds to repay and reward us.

v.11
on riches unjustly gained.

v.12-13
shame on those who forsake YHVH

At this point, remember that this is a distinctly RELIGIOUS people. This is a confrontation of believers who have gone after the ways of the god of this world.

v.14
...a cry for healing and rescue. This could be that of any honest-hearted person who reads the preceding verses.
Like Isaiah 6 when Isaiah sees the Lord.
Like the woman in John 8, caught in idolatry, confronted ultimately by Mercy, Himself. We lie in the dust, dragged there by the truth about ourselves...

v.15
a return to the present situation of Jeremiah. He has been calling for deliverance from the people who are mocking and threatening him.

v.17
"...do not be a terror to me..." Jeremiah says to God.
v.18
calls for vindication on those who persecute him.
calls for destruction and doom on them. "...double destruction..."(NKJV)

v.19-27
a call to holiness on the Sabbath.
Interesting that in a city soaked in innocent blood, teeming with idols, that the call is simply to honor the Sabbath. Very interesting. This seems like a litmus test to the people's belief and obedience.

Jeremiah pronounces this in the Kings Gate of Jerusalem. This is a big deal. He was a major personality in Judah. They're gonna try to kill him for this kind of thing.