Jeremiah 7
7
False Trust in the Temple
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2#Jer 26:2Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and proclaim there this word:
Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter at these gates to worship the Lord. 3#Jer 18:11; 26:13Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4#Mic 3:11Do not trust in lying words, saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” 5#Isa 1:19; Jer 4:1–2For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your deeds, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor, 6#Dt 8:19; Jer 2:34if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your harm, 7#Dt 4:40; Jer 3:18then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. 8#Jer 7:4Indeed, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
9#Ex 20:3; Jer 7:6Shall you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, 10#Jer 32:34; Eze 23:39and come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, “We are delivered,” so that you may do all these abominations? 11#Isa 56:7; Mt 21:13Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Certainly, even I have seen it, says the Lord.
12#1Sa 4:10–11; Jos 18:1But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. 13#Isa 65:12; Pr 1:24And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, 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#Jer 7:4; 7:10therefore I will do to this 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 have done to Shiloh. 15#2Ki 17:23; Jer 15:1I will cast you out of My sight as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
16#Ex 32:10; Jer 11:14As for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry nor prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me, for I will not hear you. 17Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18#Jer 19:13; 1Ki 14:9The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their 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#1Co 10:22Do they provoke Me to anger? says the Lord. Do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?
20#Jer 42:18; La 2:3–5Therefore thus says the Lord God: My anger and My fury will be poured out upon this place, upon man and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21#Jer 6:20; Hos 8:13Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 22#Hos 6:6; 1Sa 15:22For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. 23#Ex 15:26; Dt 5:33But this thing I commanded them, saying, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.” 24#Ps 81:11–12; Jer 7:26But they did not listen, nor incline their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. 25#2Ch 36:15; Jer 25:4Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. 26#Jer 16:12; 2Ch 30:8Yet they did not listen to Me, nor incline their ear, but hardened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
27#Isa 50:2; 65:12Therefore you will speak all these words to them. But they will not listen to you. You will also call to them, but they will not answer you. 28#Isa 59:14–15You shall say to them: This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God, nor receive correction. Truth has perished, and has been cut off from their mouth.
29#Job 1:20; Jer 6:30Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
30#Jer 32:34; Eze 7:20For the sons of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. 31#Dt 17:3; Lev 18:21They 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 them, nor did it come into My heart. 32#Jer 19:6; 19:11Therefore, truly the days are coming, says the Lord, that it will no more be called Topheth, nor the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. 33#Dt 28:26; Jer 12:9The corpses of this people shall be food for the fowl of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34#Eze 26:13; Rev 18:23Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of laughter and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become desolate.
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Jeremiah 7: MEV
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Military Bible Association
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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