Jeremiah 7

1 Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

2 “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!

Place thyself in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in by these gates to bow down before the Lord.

3 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.'

Thus hath said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will permit you to dwell in this place.

4 [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.

[But] do not rely on the words of falsehood, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, [as] they [say].

5 [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,

For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your deeds; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

6 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.

If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after other gods to your own hurt:

7 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.

Then will I permit you to dwell in this place, in the land that I have given to your fathers, from eternity to eternity.

8 [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.

Behold, ye rely on the words of falsehood, that cannot profit.

9 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,

How? will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Ba'al, and walk after other gods of which ye have no knowledge;

10 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.

And [then] come and stand before my presence in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are delivered;” in order to do all these abominations?

11 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]?

Is then this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? [But] I also, behold, I have seen it, saith the Lord.

12 [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.

For go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did unto it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 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].

And now, whereas ye have done all these acts, saith the Lord, and I spoke unto you, causing [the prophets] to rise up early and speaking, while ye would not hear; and I called you, but ye would not answer:

14 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.

Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, whereon ye rely, and unto the place which I have given to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

15 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.”

And I will cast you out of my presence, as I have cast out all your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.

16 [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.

But thou—pray not thou in behalf of this people, nor lift up in their behalf entreaty or prayer, nor make intercession to me; for I will not hear thee.

17 Do you see [the wicked things] that they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the [other] towns in Judah?

Dost thou not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 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!

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, in order to provoke me to anger.

19 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!”

Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord, [and] not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?

20 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.”

Therefore thus hath said the Lord Eternal, Behold my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, over man, and over beast, and over the trees of the field, and over the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and it shall not be quenched.

21 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]!

Thus hath said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt-offerings unto your peace-sacrifices, and eat the flesh thereof.

22 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.

For I spoke not with your fathers, and I commanded them not on the day of my bringing them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offering or sacrifice;

23 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.’

But this thing did I command them, saying, Hearken to my voice, and I will be unto you for a God, and ye shall be unto me for a people; and walk ye altogether on the way which I may command you, in order that it may be well unto you.

24 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.

Yet they hearkened not, and inclined not their ear; but they walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart; and they went backward, and not forward:

25 From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.

Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt until this day; and I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, sending them daily in the morning early;

26 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.”

Yet they hearkened not unto me, and inclined not their ear; but they hardened their neck; they did worse than their fathers.

27 [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.

And if thou speak unto them all these words, and they will not hearken to thee; and if thou call unto them, and they will not answer thee:

28 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].’

Then shalt thou say unto them, This is the nation that hearken not to the voice of the Lord their God, and accept not correction; lost is the truth, and is obliterated from their mouth.

29 [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.”

Cut off thy flowing hair, and cast it away, and take up on mountain-tops a lamentation; for rejected hath the Lord and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

30 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].

For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, saith the Lord: they have set up their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

31 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.

And they have built the high-places of Thophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I had not commanded, and which never came into my mind.

32 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.

Therefore, behold days are coming, saith the Lord, that it shall not be called any more Thophet, or The valley of Ben-hinnom, but The valley of slaughter: and they shall bury in Thophet, for want of room.

33 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.

And the carcasses of this people shall become food unto the fowls of the heavens, and unto the beasts of the earth, with none to chase them away.

34 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.”

And I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of gladness, and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for a desert shall the land become.