Jeremiah 7
7
Worshiping Other Gods Is Worthless
1A message from the Lord came to Jeremiah. The Lord said, 2“Stand at the gate of my house. Announce my message to the people there. Say,
“ ‘Listen to the Lord’s message, all you people of Judah. You always come through these gates to worship the Lord. 3The God of Israel is speaking to you. He is the Lord who rules over all. He says, “Change the way you live and act. Then I will let you live in this place. 4Do not trust in lies. Do not say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord! This is the temple of the Lord! This is the temple of the Lord!’ 5You must really change the way you live and act. Treat one another fairly. 6Do not treat outsiders or widows badly in this place. Do not take advantage of children whose fathers have died. Do not kill those who are not guilty of doing anything wrong. Do not worship other gods. That will only bring harm to you. 7If you obey me, I will let you live in this place. It is the land I gave your people of long ago. It was promised to them for ever and ever. 8But look! You are trusting in worthless lies.
9“ ‘ “You continue to steal and commit murder. You commit adultery. You tell lies in court. You burn incense to Baal. You worship other gods you didn’t know before. 10Then you come and stand in front of me. You keep coming to this house where I have put my Name. You say, ‘We are safe.’ You think you are safe when you do so many things I hate. 11My Name is in this house. But you have made it a den for robbers! I have been watching you!” announces the Lord.
12“ ‘ “Go now to the town of Shiloh. Go to the place where I first made a home for my Name. See what I did to it because of the evil things my people Israel were doing. 13I spoke to you again and again,” announces the Lord. “I warned you while you were doing all these things. But you did not listen. I called out to you. But you did not answer. 14So what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house where my Name is. It is the temple you trust in. It is the place I gave to you and your people of long ago. 15But I will throw you out of my land. That is exactly what I did to the people of Ephraim. And they are your relatives.” ’
16“Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not make any appeal or request for them. Do not beg me. I will not listen to you. 17Don’t you see what they are doing? They are worshiping other gods in the towns of Judah. They are offering sacrifices to them in the streets of Jerusalem. 18The children go out and gather wood. The fathers light the fire. The women mix the dough. They make flat cakes of bread to offer to the female god called the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods. That makes me very angry. 19But am I the one they are hurting?” announces the Lord. “Aren’t they only harming themselves? They should be ashamed of it.”
20So the Lord and King says, “I will pour out my burning anger on this place. It will strike people and animals alike. It will destroy the trees in the fields and the crops in your land. It will burn, and no one will be able to put it out.”
21The Lord who rules over all is the God of Israel. He says, “Go ahead! Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices. Eat the meat yourselves! 22When I brought your people out of Egypt, I spoke to them. But I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23I also gave them another command. I said, ‘Obey me. Then I will be your God. And you will be my people. Live the way I command you to live. Then things will go well with you.’ 24But they did not listen. They refused to pay any attention to me. Instead, they did what their stubborn and evil hearts wanted them to do. They went backward and not forward. 25Again and again I sent my servants the prophets to you. They came to you day after day. They prophesied from the time your people left Egypt until now. 26But your people of long ago did not listen. They refused to pay any attention to me. They were stubborn. They did more evil things than their people who lived before them.
27“Jeremiah, when you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not answer. 28So say to them, ‘You are a nation that has not obeyed the Lord your God. You did not pay attention when you were corrected. Truth has died out. You do not tell the truth anymore.’ ”
29The Lord says to the people of Jerusalem, “Cut off your hair. Throw it away. Sing a song of sadness on the bare hilltops. I am very angry with you. I have turned my back on you. I have deserted you.
The Valley of Death
30“The people of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes,” announces the Lord. “They have set up statues of their gods. They have worshiped them in the house where my Name is. They have made my house ‘unclean.’ I hate those statues. 31The people have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they worship other gods. And there they sacrifice their children in the fire. That is something I did not command. It did not even enter my mind. 32So watch out!” announces the Lord. “The days are coming when people will not call it Topheth anymore. And they will not call it the Valley of Ben Hinnom either. Instead, they will call it the Valley of Death. They will bury the dead bodies of some people in Topheth. But they will run out of room. 33Then they will not be able to bury the bodies of other people there. So the bodies will become food for birds and wild animals. And no one will scare them away. 34I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness. The voices of brides and grooms will not be heard anymore. There will be no sounds of joy in the towns of Judah. And there will be no joy in the streets of Jerusalem. The land will become a desert.
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Jeremiah 7: NIrV
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Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®, NIrV®
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Jeremiah 7
7
The LORD’s temple
1Jeremiah received the LORD’s word: 2Stand near the gate of the LORD’s temple and proclaim there this message: Listen to the LORD’s word, all you of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. 3This is what the LORD of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: Improve your conduct and your actions, and I will dwell with you#7.3 Or I will let you dwell in this place. 4Don’t trust in lies: “This is the LORD’s temple! The LORD’s temple! The LORD’s temple!” 5No, if you truly reform your ways and your actions; if you treat each other justly; 6if you stop taking advantage of the immigrant, orphan, or widow; if you don’t shed the blood of the innocent in this place, or go after other gods to your own ruin, 7only then will I dwell with you#7.7 Or I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave long ago to your ancestors for all time.
8And yet you trust in lies that will only hurt you. 9Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, sacrifice to Baal and go after other gods that you don’t know, 10and then come and stand before me in this temple that bears my name, and say, “We are safe,” only to keep on doing all these detestable things? 11Do you regard this temple, which bears my name, as a hiding place for criminals? I can see what’s going on here, declares the LORD. 12Just go to my sanctuary#7.12 Or place in Shiloh, where I let my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, because you haven’t listened when I spoke to you again and again or responded when I called you, 14I will do to this temple that bears my name and on which you rely, the place that I gave to you and your ancestors, just as I did to Shiloh. 15I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out the rest of your family, all the people of Ephraim.
16As for you, don’t pray for these people, don’t cry out or plead for them, and don’t intercede with me, for I won’t listen to you. 17Can’t you see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven. And to offend me all the more, they pour out drink offerings to foreign gods. 19But am I the one they are really offending? declares the LORD. Aren’t they in fact humiliating themselves? 20Therefore, this is what the LORD God says: I’m going to pour out my fierce anger on this place, on humans and beasts, on the trees of the field and the crops of the fertile land. It will burn and not go out.
21This is what the LORD of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: Add your entirely burned offerings to your sacrifices and eat them yourselves! 22On the day I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I didn’t say a thing—I gave no instructions—about entirely burned offerings or sacrifices. 23Rather, this is what I required of them: Obey me so that I may become your God and you may become my people. Follow the path I mark out for you so that it may go well with you. 24But they didn’t listen or pay attention. They followed their willful and evil hearts and went backward rather than forward. 25From the moment your ancestors left the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent you all my servants the prophets—day after day. 26But they didn’t listen to me or pay attention; they were stubborn and did more harm than their ancestors. 27When you tell them all this, they won’t listen to you. When you call to them, they won’t respond. 28Therefore, say to them: This nation neither obeys the LORD its God nor accepts correction; truth has disappeared; it has vanished from their lips.
29Cut off your hair and cast it away;
grieve on the well-traveled paths.
The LORD has rejected you
and has cast off a generation that provokes his anger.
30The people of Judah have done what displeases me, declares the LORD. They have corrupted the temple that bears my name by setting up their disgusting idols. 31They have built shrines at Topheth in the Ben-hinnom Valley to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, although I never commanded such a thing, nor did it ever cross my mind. 32So now the time is coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer speak of Topheth or the Ben-hinnom Valley, but the Carnage Valley. They will bury in Topheth until no space is left. 33The corpses of this people will be food for birds and wild animals, with no one to drive them off. 34I will silence the sound of joy and delight as well as the voice of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for the country will be reduced to a wasteland.
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