Jeremiah 17:11

Jeremiah 17:11, in plain English

Getting rich through dishonest means might look successful temporarily, but it won't last—you'll lose it all before you reach old age, and you'll end up looking foolish because your whole life was built on a lie.

Why it's here

Jeremiah gives a specific example of the principle in verse 9-10. Someone who gains wealth through injustice thinks they're clever, but they're actually deceived about the sustainability of their situation. God sees what's actually happening and will expose the folly.

Who's speaking

Jeremiah, illustrating how God judges actual deeds

Where it sits in the story

This connects to Proverbs' warnings about ill-gotten gain and to Jesus' teaching that you can't serve both God and money. What looks like success in the moment falls apart when God gets the final word.

The scholarly reading

A person who accumulates wealth through unjust means is like a partridge incubating eggs she did not lay—the gains are inherently unstable and will abandon him midlife, leaving him exposed as a fool.

Language and setting

The partridge simile (קוֹרֵא חַגָּב, qore chagav) appears nowhere else in biblical literature, suggesting Jeremiah draws on natural observation: birds cannot sustainably parent eggs not their own. The image conveys unnatural acquisition—unjust wealth (עֹשֵׁר בַּלֹּא מִשְׁפָּט, osher balo mishpat) lacks organic legitimacy. Midlife desertion (בִּימֵי שִׁמְחָתוֹ, biyimei shimchato) suggests sudden, humiliating reversal of fortune.

Voice

God's wisdom instruction concluding the sapential section

Significance

This verse applies the two-ways teaching to economic ethics: unjust enrichment carries built-in dissolution. It critiques the patronage systems and corrupt administration that characterized late monarchic Judah, suggesting that divine justice—not merely social sanctions—guarantees the undoing of ill-gotten wealth.

9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

10I, the LORD, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve.

11Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is the man who makes a fortune unjustly. In the middle of his days his riches will desert him, and in the end he will be the fool.”

12A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.

13O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.

Read all of Jeremiah 17 — The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick — who can understand it? Cursed is the one who trusts in man. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.