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 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 and are fair and honest with each other. 6Stop taking advantage of foreigners, orphans, and widows. Don't kill innocent people. And stop worshiping 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? 11#Mt 21.13; Mk 11.17; Lk 19.46. You are thieves, and you have made my temple your hideout. But I've seen everything you have done.
12 #
Js 18.1; Ps 78.60; Jr 26.6. Go 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!
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 Worshiping 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? 18#Jr 44.17-19. Children 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. 19But they are not only insulting me; they are also harming 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. 31#2 K 23.10; Jr 32.35; Lv 18.21. At 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. 32So watch out! Someday 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. 34#Jr 16.9; 25.10; Ba 2.23; Rev 18.23. When I am 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.
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Jeremiah 7: CEVDCI
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 7
7
Jeremiah’s Temple Message
1This is the word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah: 2“Stand at the gate of the Temple and preach this message there:
“ ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of the nation of Judah! All you who come through these gates to worship the Lord, listen to this message! 3This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right! Then I will let you live in this place. 4Don’t trust the lies of people who say, “This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord!” 5You must change your lives and do what is right. Be fair to each other. 6You must not be hard on strangers, orphans, and widows. Don’t kill innocent people in this place! Don’t follow other gods, or they will ruin your lives. 7If you do these things, I will let you live in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever.
8“ ‘But look, you are trusting lies, which is useless. 9Will you steal and murder and be guilty of adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you burn incense to the god Baal and follow other gods you have not known? 10If you do that, do you think you can come before me and stand in this place where I have chosen to be worshiped? Do you think you can say, “We are safe!” when you do all these hateful things? 11This place where I have chosen to be worshiped is nothing more to you than a hideout for robbers. I have been watching you, says the Lord.
12“ ‘You people of Judah, go now to the town of Shiloh, where I first made a place to be worshiped. See what I did to it because of the evil things the people of Israel had done. 13You people of Judah have done all these evil things too, says the Lord. I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen to me. I called you, but you did not answer. 14So I will destroy the place where I have chosen to be worshiped in Jerusalem. You trust in that place, which I gave to you and your ancestors, but I will destroy it just as I destroyed Shiloh. 15I will push you away from me just as I pushed away your relatives, the people of Israel!’
16“As for you, Jeremiah, don’t pray for these people. Don’t cry out for them or ask anything for them or beg me to help them, because I will not listen to you. 17Don’t you see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, and the fathers use the wood to make a fire. The women make the dough for cakes of bread, and they offer them to the Queen Goddess. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to make me angry. 19But I am not the one the people of Judah are really hurting, says the Lord. They are only hurting themselves and bringing shame upon themselves.
20“ ‘So this is what the Lord God says: I will pour out my anger on this place, on people and animals, on the trees in the field and the crops in the ground. My anger will be like a hot fire that no one can put out.
Obedience Is More than Sacrifice
21“ ‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Offer burnt offerings along with your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves! 22When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not speak to them and give them commands only about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23I also gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Do all that I command so that good things will happen to you. 24But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were stubborn and did whatever their evil hearts wanted. They went backward, not forward. 25Since the day your ancestors left Egypt, I have sent my servants, the prophets, again and again to you. 26But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were very stubborn and did more evil than their ancestors.’
27“Jeremiah, you will tell all these things to the people of Judah, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you. 28So say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth; it has disappeared from their lips.
The Valley of Killing
29“ ‘Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them. 30The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean. 31The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind. 32So, I warn you. The days are coming, says the Lord, when people will not call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom anymore. They will call it the Valley of Killing. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no room to bury anyone else. 33Then the bodies of the dead will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals. There will be no one left alive to chase them away. 34I will end the happy sounds of the bride and bridegroom. There will be no happy sounds in the cities of Judah or in the streets of Jerusalem, because the land will become an empty desert!
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.