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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Jeremiah 7
7
Jeremiah’s Proclamation at the Gate of the House of Yahweh
1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,#Literally “to say” 2“Stand in the gate of the house of Yahweh and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all of Judah, those who enter through these gates to bow in worship to Yahweh. 3Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good and let me dwell with you in this place. 4Do not trust in the deceitful words,#Literally “the words of the deception” saying,#Literally “to say” ‘The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, they are the temple of Yahweh.’ 5For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor, 6you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, you do not shed innocent blood in this place, and you do not go after other gods to your harm,#Literally “to harm to you” 7then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors#Or “fathers” forever and ever.#Literally “from eternity and until eternity”
8Look, you are relying for yourselves on deceitful words#Literally “the words of the deception” without benefiting. 9Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear falsely?#Literally “to the lie” And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known? 10And then you come and you stand before#Literally “to the face of” me in this house, which is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” and you say, ‘we are safe to go on doing#Literally “for the sake of the doing of” all of these detestable things.’ 11Has this house, which is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen it,” #Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh.
12“For go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell in the beginning, and see what I did to it because of#Literally “from face” the wickedness of my people Israel. 13And now, because of your doing all these things,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “and I have spoken to you over and over again,#Literally “I spoke to you doing early and speaking” and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered, 14therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors#Or “fathers” what#Literally “as that” I did to Shiloh. 15And I will cast you out of my sight#Literally “from at my face” just as I cast out all of your blood relatives,#Or “brothers” all of the offspring of Ephraim.” ’
16“And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I will not hear you. 17Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children are gathering wood, and the fathers are kindling the fire, and the women are kneading dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods for the sake of provoking me to anger. 19Are they provoking me to anger? ” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “Is it not themselves they hurt, for the sake of the shame of their faces?” 20Therefore#Literally “To thus” thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on the humankind, and on the animal, and on the tree of the field, and on the fruit of the ground, and it will not be extinguished.”
21Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 22For I did not speak with your ancestors,#Or “fathers” nor did I command them in the day of bringing them out from the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offering and sacrifice. 23But I only commanded them this word, saying,#Literally “to say” ‘Obey my voice, and I will be to you God, and you will be to me people, and you must walk in all of the way that I command you, so that it goes well with you.’ 24Yet they did not obey, and they did not incline their ear, but they walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and they became worse instead of better.#Literally “they were to backward and not to face” 25From the day that your ancestors#Or “fathers” came out from the land of Egypt until this day I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, sending again and again.#Literally “doing early and sending” 26Yet they have not listened to me and they have not inclined their ear, but they have hardened their neck, they did more evil than their ancestors.#Or “fathers” 27So you shall speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you, and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
The Valley of the Slaughter
28“And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the voice of Yahweh their God, and they have not accepted discipline. The truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouths.#Hebrew “mouth” 29Shear your hair and throw it#Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation away, and lift up a lament on the barren heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’ 30For the people #Or “children” of Judah have done evil in my eyes,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “They have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” to defile it. 31And they built the high place of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, and it did not come into my mind.#Or “heart” 32Therefore look, days are about to come,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “and it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter, and they will bury in Topheth until there is no more place.#Literally “from there is no place” 33And the dead bodies#Hebrew “body” of this people will be as food for the birds#Hebrew “bird” of the heavens,#Or “sky” and for the animals#Hebrew “animal” of the earth, without anyone to scare them#Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation away. 34And I will cause to disappear from the towns of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of jubilation, and the sound of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a site of ruins.
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