Jeremiah 7
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,
2 “Stand at the gate to the house of the Lord, and preach this word there, and say: Listen to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter through these gates to adore the Lord.
“Go to the entrance of my temple, and give this message to the people: You people of Judah who worship here, listen to this message from Yahweh!
3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your intentions good, and I will live with you in this place.
The Commander of the armies of angels says to you, ['If you] stop doing evil things and start doing what is right, I will allow you to remain living in your land.'
4 Do not choose to trust in lying words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!’
[But some people] are repeatedly saying to you, ‘The temple of Yahweh is here, [so we will be safe]; [he will not allow us and the temple to be destroyed].’ But do not pay attention to what they say, because they are deceiving you.
5 For if you direct your ways and your intentions well, if you exercise judgment between a man and his neighbor,
[I will act mercifully to you only] if you change your behavior and stop doing evil things, and if you [start to] act fairly/justly toward others,
6 if you do not act with deceit toward the new arrival, the orphan, and the widow, and if you do not pour out innocent blood in this place, and if you do not walk after strange gods, which is to your own harm,
and if you stop oppressing foreigners [who live in your country], and orphans and widows, and if you stop murdering people, and if you stop worshiping (foreign gods/idols). However, if you continue to do those things, you will be destroyed.
7 then I will live with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers from the beginning and even forever.
If you do what I have told you, I will allow you to stay in this land that I promised to your ancestors that it would belong to them [and their descendants] forever.
8 Behold, you trust in false words, which will not benefit you,
[People are repeatedly] telling you, [‘The temple is here, so we are safe]’, and you are trusting/believing [that what they are saying is true], but it is a lie. [Those people are deceiving you, and what they say is] worthless.
9 so as to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer libations to Baal, and to go after strange gods, which you do not know.
You think that [RHQ] you can steal things, murder people, commit adultery, tell lies in court, and worship Baal and all those other gods that you did not know about previously,
10 And you arrived and stood before me in this house, where my name is invoked, and you said: ‘We have been freed because we carried out all these abominations.’
and then come here and stand in front of this temple, which is my temple, and say ‘Nothing bad will happen to us!’, while you continue to do all those abominable things.
11 So then, has this house, where my name has been invoked, become a den of robbers in your eyes? It is I, I am, I have seen, says the Lord.
Do you realize that you are causing this temple, which is my temple, to become like [MET] a den where bandits hide [RHQ]? Do you not know that I see [all the evil things that you people do there]?
12 Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name has lived from the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
[Long ago] I put my Sacred Tent at Shiloh [city], to be a place where people would worship me [MTY]. Think about how I [destroyed it] because my people, the Israeli people, did [many] wicked things there.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and because I have spoken to you from your morning rising, and because I was speaking, but you were not listening, and because I have called you, but you have not responded:
And while you were continually doing those wicked things, I told you about it many times, but you refused to listen. I called out to you, but you refused to answer [me].
14 I will do to this house, in which my name is invoked, and in which you have confidence, even to this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I have done to Shiloh.
Therefore, just like I destroyed Shiloh, I will [now] destroy this temple that was built for people to worship me [MTY], this temple that you trust in, that is in this place that I gave to you and your ancestors.
15 And I will cast you away from my face, just as I have cast away all your brothers, the entire offspring of Ephraim.
And I will expel you from this land and send you [to other countries] far away from me, just like I did to your relatives, the people of Israel.”
16 Therefore, you should not pray for this people, nor take up praise and supplication on their behalf. And you should not stand in opposition to me. For then I will not heed you.
[Yahweh said to me, “Jeremiah], do not pray for these people [any longer]. Do not cry for them or plead for [me to help] them, because I will not pay any attention to you.
17 Have you not seen what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
Do you see [the wicked things] that they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the [other] towns in Judah?
18 The sons gather the wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the wives spread the grease, so as to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to offer libations to strange gods, and so as to provoke me to anger.
The children gather firewood and their fathers use it to make fires [on the altars to burn sacrifices]. The women knead/make dough to make cakes to offer to [their goddess Astarte who is called] the Queen of Heaven. And [on their altars] they pour out offerings of wine to [their] other idols. All of those things cause me to become extremely angry!
19 But are they provoking me to anger, says the Lord? Are they not provoking themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”
But I am not [RHQ] the one whom they are hurting; they are really [RHQ] hurting themselves [by doing these things for which they should be] very ashamed!”
20 Therefore, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, my fury and my indignation is kindled against this place, over men and over beasts, and over the trees of the countryside and over the fruits of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.”
So Yahweh the Lord says this: “Because I am extremely angry with [what happens at] this place, I will punish these people severely [MTY]; my being very angry will be [like] [MET] a fire that will not be extinguished, and I will destroy the people, [their] animals, [their] fruit trees, and [their] crops.”
21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your holocausts to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
Therefore, this is what the Commander of the armies of angels says: “Take away [IRO] your offerings that you bring to burn completely on your altars and your [other] sacrifices; [don’t give them to me]; eat them [yourselves]!
22 For concerning the matter of holocausts and sacrifices, I did not speak with your fathers, and I did not instruct them, in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt.
When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not offerings to be completely burned on the altar or [other] sacrifices that I wanted from them.
23 But on this matter I did instruct them, saying: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. And walk in the entire way that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.
What I told them was, ‘Obey me; [if you do that], I will be your God and you will be my people. If you do the things that I want you to do, everything will go well for you.’
24 But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, they walked by their own will and in the depravity of their own wicked heart. And so, they went backward, and not forward,
But your ancestors would not pay any attention [DOU] to me. They continued to do [the evil things] that they wanted to do, everything that in their stubborn inner beings they desired to do. Instead of coming closer to me, they went further away from me.
25 from the day when their fathers went forth from the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to you, throughout the day, rising at first light and sending them.
From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.
26 But they have not listened to me, nor have they inclined their ear. Instead, they have stiffened their neck, and they have behaved worse than their fathers did.
But you, [my people], have not listened to me or paid attention to what I said; you have been stubborn, and you have done more sinful things than your ancestors did.”
27 And so, you will speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you. And you will call to them, but they will not respond to you.
[Then Yahweh said to me], “When you tell all this to my people, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.
28 And you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor accepted discipline. Faith has perished and been taken away from their mouth.
Say to them, ‘You people [of Judah] have not obeyed Yahweh, your God; you have not accepted it when he tried to correct you. No one among you is truthful; you do not say anything that is true; [you speak only lies].’
29 Cut off your hair, and cast it away. And take up a lamentation on high. For the Lord has cast aside and abandoned this generation of his fury.
[So, tell them to] cut off their hair [to show that they are mourning]; tell them to go up into the hills and sing a sad funeral song, because I have completely rejected [DOU] this generation [of people] who have made me angry.”
30 For the sons of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the Lord. They have stationed their abominations in the house where my name is invoked, so that they may defile it.
Yahweh says this: “The people of Judah have done many things that I say are evil. They have set up their disgusting idols in my temple, causing it to become an unacceptable [place to worship me].
31 And they have built the exalted places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, so that they may burn their sons and their daughters with fire, something I neither instructed, nor thought in my heart.
They have built altars at Topheth in Ben-Hinnom Valley [outside Jerusalem], and they sacrifice their sons and daughters on those altars. I never commanded them to do that; I never even thought that anyone would do that.
32 For this reason, behold, the days will arrive, says the Lord, when it will no longer be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but instead the Valley of Slaughter. Yet they will bury in Topheth, because there will be no other place.
So they should beware! There will be a time when that place will no longer be called Topheth or the Hinnom Valley; instead, it will be called the Valley of Slaughter. There will be a huge number of people who will be buried there, with the result that there will be no space to bury more bodies.
33 And the corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the wild beasts of the land, and there will be no one to drive them away.
The corpses of my people that are [not buried and are] left on the ground will be eaten by vultures and wild animals, and there will be no one to shoo/chase them away.
34 And from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, I will cause the cessation of the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride. For the land will be in utter desolation.”
There will be no one singing and laughing any more in the streets of Jerusalem; there will be no more joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides in Judah, because the land will be completely destroyed.”
