Jeremiah 7
1 The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:
Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,
2 Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all ye men of Juda, that enter in at 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 saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Make your ways and your doings good: and I will dwell 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 Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is 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 will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will execute judgement 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 opress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods to your own hurt,
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 I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore.
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 put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit 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 To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not.
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 have come, and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have done 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 Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in your eyes become a den of robbers? I, I am he: I have seen it, saith 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 ye to my place in Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning: and see what I did to it for 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, saith the Lord: and I have spoken to you rising up early, and speaking, and you have not heard: and I have called you, and you have not answered:
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 called upon, and in which you trust, and to the places which I have given you and your fathers, as I did to Silo.
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 before my face, as I have cast away all your brethren, the whole seed 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, do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will not hear thee.
[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 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, 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 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 offer libations to strange gods, and 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 Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? Is it not themselves, to the confusion of their contenance?
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 saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation was enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
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 saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye 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 I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices.
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 this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, 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 hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and 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 that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets from day to day, rising up early and sending.
From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.
26 And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers.
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 thou shalt speak to them all these words, but they will not hearken to thee: and thou shalt call them, but they will not answer thee.
[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 thou shalt say to them: This is a nation which hath not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction: Faith is lost, and is carried away out of 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 thy hair, and cast it away: and take up a lamentation on high: for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath,
[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 Because the children of Juda have done evil in my eyes, saith the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house in which my name is called upon, to pollute 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 high places of Topeth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons, and their daughters in the fire: which I commanded not, nor thought on 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 Therefore behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and it shall no more be called Topeth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom: but the valley of slaughter, and they shall bury in Topeth, because there is no 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 carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be non 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 I will cause to cease out of the cities of Juda, and out of the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.
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.”
