- The people's sin is inscribed on their hearts with an iron pen or a diamond point (ouch), as they run around worshipping hills and trees.
- This has made God very angry, of course.
- People who trust in mere mortals instead of in God will be dry and thirsty like desert shrubs.
- But those who trust in God's will be like flourishing trees planted by a stream. Even drought won't affect them.
- People who get rich unjustly are like partridges trying to hatch the eggs of another bird—the baby birds will abandon them once they hatch.
- The people who turn from God are—wait for it—in for a terrible punishment and a future life in the underworld. Who knew?
- Jeremiah prays to God: he says he's been a faithful servant, and wants to be saved from his enemies and healed from his sufferings.
- He asks God to make sure that his persecutors are destroyed.
- God tells Jeremiah to head out to the city gates of Jerusalem and urge the people to keep the Sabbath holy, telling them not to do any work on the Sabbath.
- Their ancestors received the same instructions but apparently ignored them.
- If they can keep the Sabbath day holy, good kings from the line of David will enter their city, and people will come from all around to make offerings and worship God in Jerusalem.
- But if they don't do this, God's wrath will burn up the city and devour it. He really means it this time.