< Jeremiah 7 >
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH, saying,
2 "Stand in the gate of YHWH's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of YHWH, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship YHWH.
3 Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4 Do not trust in lying words, saying, "YHWH's temple, YHWH's temple, YHWH's temple, are these."
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.
8 Look, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.
9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
10 and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are delivered"; that you may do all these abominations?
11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen it, says YHWH.
12 But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 Now, because you have done all these works, says YHWH, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer:
14 therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15 I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.
16 Therefore do not pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
17 Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
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 pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger?" says YHWH. "Do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?"
20 Therefore thus says YHWH: "Look, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched."
21 Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
22 For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, 'Listen to 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.'
24 But they did not listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 yet they did not listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers."
27 "You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.
28 You shall tell them, 'This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of YHWH their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for YHWH has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.'"
30 "For the people of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight," says YHWH: "they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.
32 Therefore look, the days come," says YHWH, "that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The Valley of Ben Hinnom, but The Valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.
33 The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from 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."
