Jeremiah Chapter 7    

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
  ²“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.
 

³“This is what Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you live in this place.
  ⁴Do not trust in lying words, saying, ‘This is the Temple of Yahweh, the Temple of Yahweh, the Temple of Yahweh.’
  ⁵But if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice between a man and his neighbor,
  ⁶if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods (which is to your own hurt),
  ⁷then I will let you live in this place, in this land that long ago I gave to your fathers forever.
  ⁸Behold, you are trusting in lying words that cannot help.
 

⁹“Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,
  ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house that is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ only to go on doing all these abominations?
  ¹¹Has this house that is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares Yahweh.
 

¹²“But go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
  ¹³Now, because you have done all these things, says Yahweh, and because I spoke to you again and again, rising up early and speaking, but you did not listen, and I called you, but you did not answer,
  ¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, even to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh.
  ¹⁵I will cast you out of my sight as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
 

¹⁶“As for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to me, for I will not hear you.
  ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
  ¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, making me angry.
  ¹⁹But are they making me angry?” says Yahweh. “Are they not doing it to themselves, to the shame of their own faces?”
 

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on animal, and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and will not be quenched.”
 

²¹This is what Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves.
  ²²For in the day that I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or give them commands out of concern for burnt offerings or sacrifices;
  ²³but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God and you will be my people; and walk in all the ways that I command you so that it will go well with you.’
  ²⁴But they did not listen or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsel and in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
  ²⁵Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them again and again,
  ²⁶yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.
 

²⁷“You are to speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; you are also to call to them, but they will not answer you.
  ²⁸You must tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction. Truth has perished; it has been cut off from their mouth.
  ²⁹Cut off your hair and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation that has aroused his wrath.’
 

³⁰“For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, says Yahweh, they have set up their abominations in the house that is called by my name, to defile it.
  ³¹They have built the shrines of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.
 

³²“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says Yahweh, “that it will no more be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury bodies in Topheth because there is no place left to bury.
  ³³The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the animals of the earth, and no one will frighten them away.
  ³⁴Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a waste.”