Jeremias 7

1

2 Hear you the word of the Lord, all Judea.

3 Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Correct your ways and your devices, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Trust not in yourselves with lying words, for they shall not profit you at all, saying, It is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

5 For if you thoroughly correct your ways and your practices, and do indeed execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;

6 and oppress not the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and go not after strange gods to your hurt:

7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers of old and for ever.

8 But whereas you have trusted in lying words, whereby you shall not be profited;

9 and you murder, and commit adultery, and steal, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and are gone after strange gods whom you know not,

10 so that it is evil with you; yet have you come, and stood before me in the house, whereon my name is called, and you have said, We have refrained from doing all these abominations.

11 Is my house, whereon my name is called, a den of robbers in your eyes? And, behold, I have seen [it], says the Lord.

12 For go you to my place with is in Selo, where I caused my name to dwell before, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 And now, because you have done all these deeds, and I spoke to you, but you listened not to me; and I called you, but you answered not;

14 therefore I also will do to the house whereon my name is called, wherein you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Selo.

15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast away your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.

16 Therefore pray not you for this people, and intercede not for them to be pitied, yes, pray not, and approach me not for them: for I will not listen [to you].

17 Seest you not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 Their children gather wood, and their fathers kindle a fire, and their women knead dough, to make cakes to the host of heaven; and they have poured out drink-offerings to strange gods, that they might provoke me to anger.

19 Do they provoke me to anger? says the Lord: do they not [provoke] themselves, that their faces may be ashamed?

20 Therefore thus says the Lord; Behold, my anger and wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon every tree of their field, and upon the fruits of the land; and it shall burn, and not be quenched.

21 Thus says the Lord, Gather your whole burnt offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh.

22 For I spoke not to your fathers, and commanded them not in the day wherein I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifice:

23 but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hear you my voice, and I will be to you a God, and you shall be to me a people: and walk you in all my ways which I shall command you, that it may be well with you.

24 But they listened not to me, and their ear gave no heed, but they walked in the imaginations of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward;

25 from the day that their fathers went forth out of the land of Egypt, even until this day. And I sent to you all my servants, the prophets, by day and early in the morning: yes, I sent [them],

26 but they listened not to me, and their ear gave no heed; and they made their neck harder than their fathers.

27 Therefore you shall speak this word to them;

28 This is the nation which has not listened to the voice of the Lord, nor received correction: truth has failed from their mouth.

29 Cut off your hair, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on your lips; for the Lord has reprobated and rejected the generation that does these things.

30 For the children of Juda have wrought evil before me, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house on which my name is called, to defile it.

31 And they have built the altar of Taphes, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters with fire; which I did not command them [to do], neither did I design it in my heart.

32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Taphes, and the valley of the son of Ennom, but, The valley of the slain; and they shall bury in Taphes, for lack of room.

33 And the dead bodies of this people shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the wild beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to drive [them] away.

34 And I will destroy out of the cities of Juda, and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of them that make merry, and the voice of them that rejoice, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the whole land shall become a desolation.