Jeremiah 7
7
False Trust in the Temple
1This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2“Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord#Jr 26:2 and there call out this word: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.
3“‘This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your actions,#Jr 4:18; 18:11; 26:13 and I will allow you to live in this place. 4Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” 5Instead, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly toward one another,#7:5 Lit justly between a man and his neighbor#Jr 22:3 6if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow#Dt 19:10,13; 21:8–9; 2Kg 21:16; 24:4; Jr 22:3,17; 26:15; Mt 27:4 and no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves, 7I will allow you to live in this place, the land I gave to your ancestors#Gn 12:7; Jos 1:2; Jr 30:3 long ago and forever. 8But look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help.
9“‘Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known?#Ex 20:3–17; Lv 19:11–12; Dt 5:7–21; Ezk 18:5–9,14–18; 22:6–12; Hs 4:2 10Then do you come and stand before me in this house#Jr 32:34 that bears my name and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts”? 11Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers#Is 56:7; Mt 21:13; Mk 11:17; Lk 19:46 in your view? Yes, I too have seen it.#Ps 33:13–15; Ezk 8:12; Am 9:1–4
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Shiloh as a Warning
12“‘But return to my place that was at Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first.#Dt 12:11; 14:23; 16:6,11 See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13Now, because you have done all these things — this is the Lord’s declaration — and because I have spoken to you time and time again#7:13 Lit you rising early and speaking but you wouldn’t listen,#Jr 7:25; 11:7; 25:3; 26:5; 29:19; 32:33; 35:14–15; 44:4 and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer,#Pr 1:24; Is 65:12 14what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that bears my name,#Dt 12:5; 1Kg 9:7; Mk 13:2 the house in which you trust, the place that I gave you and your ancestors. 15I will banish you from my presence, just as I banished all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.’ #Dt 29:28; 2Kg 17
Do Not Pray for Judah
16“As for you, do not pray for these people.#Jr 11:14; 14:11–12; 15:1 Do not offer a cry or a prayer on their behalf, and do not beg me,#Gn 23:8; Ru 1:16; Jr 27:18 for I will not listen to you.#Ex 32:11–13,20–34; Jr 14:11; 15:1 17Don’t you see how they behave in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven,#7:18 = a pagan goddess#Jr 44:17–19,25 and they pour out drink offerings to other gods so that they provoke me to anger. 19But are they really provoking me?” #Jb 35:6 This is the Lord’s declaration. “Isn’t it they themselves being provoked to disgrace?”
20Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Look, my anger — my burning wrath — is about to be poured out on this place,#Jr 42:18; Lm 4:11 on people and animals, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”#Nah 1:6
Obedience over Sacrifice
21This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,#Dt 12:4–28; Ps 50:13; Hs 8:13 22for when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them#Hs 6:6 or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifice. 23However, I did give them this command: ‘Obey me, and then I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.’ #Dt 5:33 24Yet they didn’t listen or pay attention#Ps 81:11 but followed their own advice and their own stubborn, evil heart. They went backward and not forward.#Jr 15:6 25Since the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until today, I have sent all my servants the prophets#2Kg 9:7; 17:13; Jr 26:5; 29:19; 35:15; 44:4; Ezk 38:17; Zch 1:6 to you time and time again.#7:25 Lit you, each day rising early and sending#2Ch 36:15–16; Jr 25:4 26However, my people wouldn’t listen to me or pay attention but became obstinate;#Ex 32:9; Dt 9:6,13; 2Kg 17:14; Jr 17:23; 19:15 they did more evil than their ancestors.#1Kg 16:25; 2Kg 21:11
A Lament for Disobedient Judah
27“When you speak all these things to them, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer you. 28Therefore, declare to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth#7:28 Or Faithfulness has perished — it has disappeared from their mouths. 29Cut off the hair of your sacred vow#7:29 Lit off your consecration#Nm 6:1–8 and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights,#Jr 3:2,21 for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under his wrath.’ #Is 2:6
30“For the Judeans have done what is evil in my sight.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “They have set up their abhorrent things#Jr 4:1; 16:18; 32:34 in the house that bears my name in order to defile it.#2Kg 23:24 31They have built the high places of Topheth#7:31 Lit of the fireplace#2Kg 23:10; Jr 19:6,11–14 in Ben Hinnom Valley#7:31 A valley south of Jerusalem#Jos 15:8; Jr 19:5; 32:35 in order to burn their sons and daughters in the fire,#Lv 18:21; Dt 12:31; 2Kg 17:17,31; 2Ch 28:3; Jr 19:5; Ezk 16:21; 20:31; 23:25,37,47 a thing I did not command; I never entertained the thought.
32“Therefore, look, the days are coming”#Jr 16:14; 19:6; 23:5; 48:12; 49:2; 51:47,52 — the Lord’s declaration — “when this place will no longer be called Topheth and Ben Hinnom Valley, but Slaughter Valley.#Jr 19:6 Topheth will become a cemetery,#7:32 Lit They will bury in Topheth because there will be no other burial place. 33The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away.#Dt 28:26; Ps 79:2; Jr 16:4; 19:7; 34:20; Ezk 29:5 34I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride,#Jr 16:9; 25:10; 33:11 for the land will become a desolate waste.#Lv 26:31,33; Is 64:11; Jr 25:9,11,18; 27:17; 44:2,6,22
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Jeremiah 7: CSB
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© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers
Jeremiah 7
7
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
2 "Stand at the gate to the house of the Lord, and preach this word there, and say: Listen to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter through these gates to adore the Lord.
3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your intentions good, and I will live with you in this place.
4 Do not choose to trust in lying words, saying: 'This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!'
5 For if you direct your ways and your intentions well, if you exercise judgment between a man and his neighbor,
6 if you do not act with deceit toward the new arrival, the orphan, and the widow, and if you do not pour out innocent blood in this place, and if you do not walk after strange gods, which is to your own harm,
7 then I will live with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers from the beginning and even forever.
8 Behold, you trust in false words, which will not benefit you,
9 so as to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer libations to Baal, and to go after strange gods, which you do not know.
10 And you arrived and stood before me in this house, where my name is invoked, and you said: 'We have been freed because we carried out all these abominations.'
11 So then, has this house, where my name has been invoked, become a den of robbers in your eyes? It is I, I am, I have seen, says the Lord.
12 Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name has lived from the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and because I have spoken to you from your morning rising, and because I was speaking, but you were not listening, and because I have called you, but you have not responded:
14 I will do to this house, in which my name is invoked, and in which you have confidence, even to this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you away from my face, just as I have cast away all your brothers, the entire offspring of Ephraim.
16 Therefore, you should not pray for this people, nor take up praise and supplication on their behalf. And you should not stand in opposition to me. For then I will not heed you.
17 Have you not seen what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The sons gather the wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the wives spread the grease, so as to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to offer libations to strange gods, and so as to provoke me to anger.
19 But are they provoking me to anger, says the Lord? Are they not provoking themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?"
20 Therefore, thus says the Lord God: "Behold, my fury and my indignation is kindled against this place, over men and over beasts, and over the trees of the countryside and over the fruits of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished."
21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your holocausts to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
22 For concerning the matter of holocausts and sacrifices, I did not speak with your fathers, and I did not instruct them, in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt.
23 But on this matter I did instruct them, saying: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. And walk in the entire way that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.
24 But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, they walked by their own will and in the depravity of their own wicked heart. And so, they went backward, and not forward,
25 from the day when their fathers went forth from the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to you, throughout the day, rising at first light and sending them.
26 But they have not listened to me, nor have they inclined their ear. Instead, they have stiffened their neck, and they have behaved worse than their fathers did.
27 And so, you will speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you. And you will call to them, but they will not respond to you.
28 And you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor accepted discipline. Faith has perished and been taken away from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair, and cast it away. And take up a lamentation on high. For the Lord has cast aside and abandoned this generation of his fury.
30 For the sons of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the Lord. They have stationed their abominations in the house where my name is invoked, so that they may defile it.
31 And they have built the exalted places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, so that they may burn their sons and their daughters with fire, something I neither instructed, nor thought in my heart.
32 For this reason, behold, the days will arrive, says the Lord, when it will no longer be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but instead the Valley of Slaughter. Yet they will bury in Topheth, because there will be no other place.
33 And the corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the wild beasts of the land, and there will be no one to drive them away.
34 And from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, I will cause the cessation of the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride. For the land will be in utter desolation."
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