This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.
- KJV Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
- NKJV Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the Lord.
- NASB ¶This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord.
- NLT This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God pronounces a curse on the one who trusts in man, relies on human strength, and turns his heart away from the LORD. Misplaced trust in human power is spiritual rebellion that brings God's curse.
Overview
This verse begins a striking contrast between two ways of life, opening with the curse on those who depend on mere flesh while their hearts depart from God. The root issue is a heart that turns from the LORD to created things. It exposes the futility of self-reliance and idolatry of human power, calling all people instead to the trust in God that finds its true object in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 118:8–9It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.
- Ps 146:3–4Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save.
- Isa 2:22Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
- 2 Chr 32:8With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” So the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
- Isa 31:1–9Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.
- Isa 30:1–7“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.
- Isa 36:6Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
- Ps 62:9Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
- Ps 18:21For I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not wickedly departed from my God.
- Ezek 29:6–7Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the LORD. For you were only a staff of reeds to the house of Israel.
- Ezek 6:9Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Hos 1:2When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
- Isa 59:15Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 17:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.