< Jeremiah 7 >
1 Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,
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!
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.'
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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]?
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.
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].
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.
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.”
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.
17 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.
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.”
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.
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].’
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.”
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.”
