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: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 7
7
1The word that came to Yirmeyahu from יהוה, saying,
2“Stand in the gate of the House of יהוה, and you shall proclaim there this word, and shall say, ‘Hear the word of יהוה, all you of Yehuḏah who enter in at these gates to bow before יהוה!’ ”
3Thus said יהוה of hosts, the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, “Make your ways and your deeds good, then I let you dwell in this place.
4“Do not trust in these false words, saying, ‘This is the Hĕḵal of יהוה, the Hĕḵal of יהוה, the Hĕḵal of יהוה!’
5“For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do right-ruling between a man and his neighbour,
6if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other mighty ones to your own evil,
7then I shall let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8“See, you are trusting in false words, which do not profit –
9stealing, murdering, and committing adultery, and swearing falsely, and burning incense to Ba‛al, and walking after other mighty ones you have not known.
10“And you came and stood before Me in this house which is called by My Name, and said, ‘We have been delivered’ – in order to do all these abominations!
11“Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I Myself have seen it,” declares יהוה.
12“But go now to My place at Shiloh, where I set My Name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of My people Yisra’ĕl.
13“And now, because you have done all these works,” declares יהוה, “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“I shall also do to this house, which is called by My Name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15“And I shall cast you out of My presence, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the seed of Ephrayim.
16“And you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me, for I do not hear you.
17“Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Yehuḏah and in the streets of Yerushalayim?
18“The children are gathering wood, the fathers are lighting the fire, and the women are kneading their dough, to make cakes for the sovereigness of the heavens, and to pour out drink offerings to other mighty ones, to provoke Me.
19“Is it Me they are provoking?” declares יהוה. “Is it not themselves – unto the shame of their own faces?”
20Therefore, thus said the Master יהוה, “See, My displeasure and My wrath is poured out on this place, on man and on beast, and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it shall burn and not be quenched.”
21Thus said יהוה of hosts, the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, “Add your ascending offerings to your slaughterings and eat meat.
22“For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, about matters of ascending offerings or slaughterings.
23“But this word I did command them, saying, ‘Obey My voice,#See also Gen. 26:5; Exo. 19:5; John 3:36; Rom. 6:16; Heb. 4:11; Heb. 5:9 and Rev. 22:14 and I shall be your Elohim, and you be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it be well with you.’
24“But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25“From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Mitsrayim until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.
26“But they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did evil, more than their fathers.
27“And you shall speak all these words to them, though they do not listen to you. And you shall also call to them, though they do not answer you.
28“But you shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that did not obey the voice of יהוה their Elohim, nor did they accept instruction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
29Cut off your hair and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for יהוה has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’
30“For the children of Yehuḏah have done what is evil in My eyes,” declares יהוה. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My Name, to defile it.
31“And they 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 did not command, nor did it come into My heart.
32“Therefore see, the days are coming,” declares יהוה, “when it shall no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left.
33“And the corpses of this people shall be food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them away.
34“And in the cities of Yehuḏah and in the streets of Yerushalayim I shall make to cease the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. For the land shall become a waste!
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