Cursed & Blind vs. Blessed & Verdant

This passage was in my inbox this morning:

⁵ This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

⁶ "He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

⁷ "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

⁸ "He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit." --Jeremiah 17:5-8, NIV

Want to trust in man? Check out the results: you will be cursed by the LORD, and so very blinded that even when prosperity comes, you will not be able to see it! It's not that prosperity doesn't come, it's that you are blinded to its presence! Wowser.

Kinda makes the alternative even MORE appealing, doesn't it?

Just my ponderings,
-J

¹ Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
⁴ Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

--Psalm 1, NIV

(c) 2009