Two ways to live in a broken world

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, 2 while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills, 3 on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. 4 You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

5

Thus says the LORD:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength,

whose heart turns away from the LORD.6

He is like a shrub in the desert,

and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in an uninhabited salt land.

7

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,

whose trust is the LORD.8

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

9

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?10

“I the LORD search the heart

and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.”

11

Like the partridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch,

so is he who gets riches but not by justice;

in the midst of his days they will leave him,

and at his end he will be a fool.

12

A glorious throne set on high from the beginning

is the place of our sanctuary.13

O LORD, the hope of Israel,

all who forsake you shall be put to shame;

those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,

for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.