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
Jeremiah Preaches in the Temple
1-3The LORD sent me to the gate of the Temple where the people of Judah went in to worship. He told me to stand there and announce what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, had to say to them: “Change the way you are living and the things you are doing, and I will let you go on living here. 4Stop believing those deceitful words, ‘We are safe! This is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple!’
5“Change the way you are living and stop doing the things you are doing. Be fair in your treatment of one another. 6Stop taking advantage of aliens, orphans, and widows. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop worshipping other gods, for that will destroy you. 7If you change, I will let you go on living here in the land which I gave your ancestors as a permanent possession.
8“Look, you put your trust in deceitful words. 9You steal, murder, commit adultery, tell lies under oath, offer sacrifices to Baal, and worship gods that you had not known before. 10You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, ‘We are safe!’ 11#Mt 21.13; Mk 11.17; Lk 19.46Do you think that my Temple is a hiding place for robbers? I have seen what you are doing. 12#Josh 18.1; Ps 78.60; Jer 26.6Go to Shiloh,#7.12 Shiloh: The city where the Covenant Box was kept in the time of Eli (see 1 Sam 1.3). The city was destroyed, probably by the Philistines. the first place where I chose to be worshipped, and see what I did to it because of the sins of my people Israel. 13You have committed all these sins, and even though I spoke to you over and over again, you refused to listen. You would not answer when I called you. 14And so, what I did to Shiloh I will do to this Temple of mine, in which you trust. Here in this place that I gave to your ancestors and to you, I will do the same thing that I did to Shiloh. 15I will drive you out of my sight as I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
The People's Disobedience
16The LORD said, “Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not cry or pray on their behalf; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. 17Don't you see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18#Jer 44.7–19The children gather firewood, the men build fires, and the women mix dough to bake cakes for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They also pour out wine offerings to other gods, in order to hurt me. 19But am I really the one they are hurting? No, they are hurting themselves and bringing shame on themselves. 20And so I, the Sovereign LORD, will pour out my fierce anger on this Temple. I will pour it out on people and animals alike, and even on the trees and the crops. My anger will be like a fire that no one can put out.
21“My people, some sacrifices you burn completely on the altar, and some you are permitted to eat. But what I, the LORD, say is that you might as well eat them all. 22I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices, when I brought them out of Egypt. 23But I did command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people. And I told them to live as I had commanded them, so that things would go well for them. 24But they did not obey or pay any attention. Instead, they did whatever their stubborn and evil hearts told them to do, and they became worse instead of better. 25From the day that your ancestors came out of Egypt until this very day, I have kept on sending my servants, the prophets, to you. 26Yet no one listened or paid any attention. Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your ancestors.
27“So, Jeremiah, you will speak all these words to my people, but they will not listen to you; you will call them, but they will not answer. 28You will tell them that their nation does not obey me, the LORD their God, or learn from their punishment. Faithfulness is dead. No longer is it even talked about.
Sinful Deeds in the Valley of Hinnom
29“Mourn, people of Jerusalem;
cut off your hair and throw it away.
Sing a funeral song on the hilltops,
because I, the LORD, am angry,
and have rejected my people.
30“The people of Judah have done an evil thing. They have placed their idols, which I hate, in my Temple and have defiled it. 31#Lev 18.21; 2 Kgs 23.10; Jer 32.35In the Valley of Hinnom they have built an altar called Topheth, so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters in the fire. I did not command them to do this — it did not even enter my mind. 32And so, the time will come when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. They will bury people there because there will be nowhere else to bury them. 33The corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them off. 34#Jer 16.9; 25.10; Rev 18.23The land will become a desert. In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the happy sounds of wedding feasts.
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Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.