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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Jeremiah 7: CEVUK
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
Jeremiah 7
7
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2“Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear the LORD’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.’”
3 The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘The LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, are these.’ 5For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; 6if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt, 7then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. 8Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. 9Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations? 11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says the LORD.
12“But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13Now, because you have done all these works,” says the LORD, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; 14therefore I will do to the 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 did to Shiloh. 15I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring#7:15 or, seed of Ephraim.
16“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. 17Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19Do they provoke me to anger?” says the LORD. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”
20 Therefore the Lord GOD says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”
21 The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. 22For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; 23but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. 26Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.
27“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. 28You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the LORD their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ 29Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30“For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says the LORD. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. 31They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. 32Therefore behold, the days come”, says the LORD, “that it will no more be called ‘Topheth’ or ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. 33The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. 34Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.”
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