Jeremiah 7

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

²Stand in the gate of the Lord ’s house , and proclaim there this word , and say , Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord.

³Thus says the Lord of hosts , the God of Israel : Amend your ways and your deeds , and I will let you dwell in this place .

⁴Do not trust in these deceptive words : This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

⁵For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds , if you truly execute justice one with another ,

⁶if you do not oppress the sojourner , the fatherless , or the widow , or shed innocent blood in this place , and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm ,

⁷then I will let you dwell in this place , in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever .

⁸Behold , you trust in deceptive words to no avail .

⁹Will you steal , murder , commit adultery , swear falsely , make offerings to Baal , and go after other gods that you have not known ,

¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house , which is called by my name , and say , We are delivered ! —only to go on doing all these abominations ?

¹¹Has this house , which is called by my name , become a den of robbers in your eyes ? Behold , I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

¹²Go now to my place that was in Shiloh , where I made my name dwell at first , and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel .

¹³And now , because you have done all these things , declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen , and when I called you, you did not answer ,

¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name , and in which you trust , and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers , as I did to Shiloh .

¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight , as I cast out all your kinsmen , all the offspring of Ephraim .

¹⁶As for you, do not pray for this people , or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with 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 , the fathers kindle fire , and the women knead dough , to make cakes for the queen of heaven . And they pour out drink offerings to other gods , to provoke me to anger .

¹⁹Is it I whom they provoke ? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame ?

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold , my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place , upon man and beast , upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground ; it will burn and not be quenched .

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts , the God of Israel : Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices , and eat the flesh .

²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt , I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices .

²³But this command I gave them: Obey my voice , and I will be your God , and you shall be my people . And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.

²⁴But they did not obey or incline their ear , but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts , and went backward and not forward .

²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day , I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day .

²⁶Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear , but stiffened their neck . They did worse than their fathers .

²⁷So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

²⁸And you shall say to them, This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God , and did not accept discipline ; truth has perished ; it is cut off from their lips .

²⁹Cut off your hair and cast it away ; raise a lamentation on the bare heights , for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath .

³⁰For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight , declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name , to defile it.

³¹And they have built the high places 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 .

³²Therefore , behold , the days are coming , declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth , or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom , but the Valley of Slaughter ; for they will bury in Topheth , because there is no room elsewhere .

³³And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air , and for the beasts of the earth , and none will frighten them away .

³⁴And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness , the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride , for the land shall become a waste .