Jeremiah 7
7
Jeremiah speaks in the temple
(Jeremiah 26.1-6)
1-3The LORD told me to stand by the gate of the temple#7.1-3 temple: The Hebrew text has “house of the LORD”, another name for the temple. and to tell the people who were going in that the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, had said:
Pay attention, people of Judah! Change your ways and start living right, then I will let you keep on living in your own country.#7.1-3 let you…own country: Or “live here with you”. 4Don't fool yourselves! My temple is here in Jerusalem, but that doesn't mean I will protect you. 5I will keep you safe only if you change your ways. Be fair and honest with each other. 6Stop taking advantage of foreigners, orphans, and widows. Don't kill innocent people. And stop worshipping other gods. 7Then I will let you enjoy a long life in this land I gave your ancestors.
8But just look at what is happening! You put your trust in worthless lies. 9You steal and murder; you lie in court and are unfaithful in marriage. You worship idols and offer incense to Baal, when these gods have never done anything for you. 10And then you come into my temple and worship me! Do you think I will protect you so that you can go on sinning? 11You are thieves, and you have made my temple your hideout. But I've seen everything you have done.#Mt 21.13; Mk 11.17; Lk 19.46.
12Go to Shiloh, where my sacred tent once stood. Take a look at what I did there. My people Israel sinned, and so I destroyed Shiloh!#Js 18.1; Ps 78.60; Jr 26.6.
13While you have been sinning, I have been trying to talk to you, but you refuse to listen. 14Don't think this temple will protect you. Long ago I told your ancestors to build it and worship me here, but now I have decided to tear it down, just as I destroyed Shiloh. 15And as for you, people of Judah, I'm going to send you away from my land, just as I sent away the people of Ephraim and the other northern tribes.
Punishment for worshipping other gods
16Jeremiah, don't pray for these people! I, the LORD, would refuse to listen. 17Do you see what the people of Judah are doing in their towns and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18Children gather firewood, their fathers build fires, and their mothers mix dough to bake bread for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven.#7.18 Queen of Heaven: Probably another name for the goddess Astarte. They even offer wine sacrifices to other gods, just to insult me.#Jr 44.17-19. 19But they are not only insulting me; they are also insulting themselves by doing these shameful things.
20And now, I, the LORD All-Powerful, will flood Judah with my fiery anger until nothing is left—no people or animals, no trees or crops.
It is useless to offer sacrifices
21The LORD told me to say to the people of Judah:
I am the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, but I won't accept sacrifices from you. So don't even bother bringing them to me. You might as well just cook the meat for yourselves.
22At the time I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I didn't command them to offer sacrifices to me. 23Instead, I told them, “If you listen to me and do what I tell you, I will be your God, you will be my people, and all will go well for you.” 24But your ancestors refused to listen. They were stubborn, and whenever I wanted them to go one-way, they always went the other. 25Ever since your ancestors left Egypt, I have been sending my servants the prophets to speak for me. 26But you have ignored me and become even more stubborn and sinful than your ancestors ever were!
Slaughter Valley
The LORD said:
27Jeremiah, no matter what you do, the people won't listen. 28So you must say to them:
People of Judah, I am the LORD your God, but you have refused to obey me, and you didn't change when I punished you. And now, you no longer even pretend to be faithful to me.
29Shave your head bald
and throw away the hair.
Sing a funeral song
on top of a barren hill.
You people have made me angry,
and I have abandoned you.
30You have disobeyed me by putting your disgusting idols in my temple, and now the temple itself is disgusting to me. 31At Topheth in Hinnom Valley you have built altars where you kill your children and burn them as sacrifices to other gods. I would never think of telling you to do this.#2 K 23.10; Jr 32.35; Lv 18.21. 32So watch out! Some day that place will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley. It will be called Slaughter Valley, because you will bury your dead there until you run out of room, 33and then bodies will lie scattered on the ground. Birds and wild animals will come and eat, and no one will be around to scare them off. 34When I have finished with your land, there will be deathly silence in the empty ruins of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah—no happy voices, no sounds of parties or wedding celebrations.#Jr 16.9; 25.10; Rev 18.23.
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
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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