Jeremiah 7

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and proclaim this word there: Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter these gates to bow down to the LORD. This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘These are the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!’ For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a person and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors, from ages past to ages to come. Look, you are trusting in deceptive words that cannot help. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods you have not known, then come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house that bears my name become a den of robbers in your eyes? Look, I myself have seen it, declares the LORD. Go now to my place in Shiloh, where I first made my name dwell, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and I spoke to you, speaking early and persistently, but you did not listen, and I called you, but you did not answer, I will do to the house that bears my name, in which you trust, and to the place I gave you and your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. I will cast you out of my presence, just as I cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim. As for you, do not pray for this people. Do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. Is it me they provoke? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame?” Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on people and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground. It will burn and will not be quenched.” This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the meat! For on the day I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow the entire path I command you, so that it may go well with you.’ But they did not listen or incline their ears. They followed their own counsels, the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward rather than forward. From the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent you all my servants the prophets, day after day, rising early and sending them. Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ears; they stiffened their necks and did worse than their ancestors. You are to speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you. Tell them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD its God or accept discipline. Faithfulness has perished; it has been cut off from their mouths.’ Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lament on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight,” declares the LORD. “They have set their abominations in the house that bears my name, defiling it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore look, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. They will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the heavens and the animals of the earth, with no one to frighten them away. I will put an end in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem to the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a waste.”

Rights and attribution