Jeremiah 7
7
Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon
1This is the Lord’s message to Jeremiah: 2“Jeremiah, stand at the gate of the Lord’s house. Teach this message at the gate:
“‘Hear the message from the Lord, all you people of the nation of Judah. All you who come through these gates to worship the Lord, hear this message. 3The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do good things. If you do this, I will let you live in this place.#7:3 I will … place This can also mean “I will live with you.” 4Don’t trust the lies that some people say. They say, “This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord!#7:4 This is … Lord Many people in Jerusalem thought the Lord would always protect the city where his Temple was, so it didn’t matter how evil they were.” 5If you change your lives and do good things, I will let you live in this place. You must be fair to each other. 6You must be fair to strangers. You must help widows and orphans. Don’t kill innocent people in this place! And don’t follow other gods, because they will only ruin your lives. 7If you obey me, I will let you live in this place. I gave this land to your ancestors for them to keep forever.
8“‘But you are trusting lies that are worthless. 9Will you steal and murder? Will you commit adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you worship the false god Baal and follow other gods that you have not known? 10If you commit these sins, do you think that you can stand before me in this house that is called by my name? Do you think you can stand before me and say, “We are safe,” just so you can do all these terrible things? 11This Temple is called by my name. Is this Temple nothing more to you than a hideout for robbers? I have been watching you.’” This message is from the Lord.
12“‘You people of Judah, go now to the town of Shiloh. Go to the place where I first made a house for my name. The people of Israel also did evil things. Go and see what I did to that place because of the evil they did.#7:12 Go … they did Shiloh was probably destroyed by the Philistines in the time of Eli and Samuel. See 1 Sam. 4. 13You people of Judah were doing all these evil things too. This message is from the Lord! I spoke to you again and again, but you refused to listen to me. I called to you, but you did not answer. 14So I will destroy the house called by my name in Jerusalem. I will destroy that Temple as I destroyed Shiloh. And that house in Jerusalem that is called by my name is the Temple you trust in. I gave that place to you and to your ancestors. 15I will throw you away from me just as I threw away all your brothers from Ephraim.’
16“As for you, Jeremiah, don’t pray for these people of Judah. Don’t beg for them or pray for them. Don’t beg me to help them. I will not listen to your prayer for them. 17I know you see what they are doing in the towns of Judah. You can see what they are doing in the streets of the city of Jerusalem. 18This is what the people of Judah are doing: The children gather wood. The fathers use the wood to make a fire. The women make the dough and then make cakes of bread to offer to the Queen of Heaven. The people of Judah pour out drink offerings to worship other gods. They do this to make me angry. 19But I am not the one they are really hurting.” This message is from the Lord. “They are only hurting themselves. They are bringing shame on themselves.”
20So this is what the Lord GOD says: “I will show my anger against this place. I will punish people and animals. I will punish the trees in the field and the crops that grow in the ground. My anger will be like a hot fire—no one will be able to stop it.”
Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifice
21This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “Go and offer as many burnt offerings and sacrifices as you want. Eat the meat of those sacrifices yourselves. 22I brought your ancestors out of Egypt. I spoke to them, but I did not give them any commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23I only gave them this command: ‘Obey me and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Do all that I command, and good things will happen to you.’
24“But your ancestors did not listen to me. They did not pay attention to me. They were stubborn and did what they wanted to do. They did not become good. They became even more evil—they went backward, not forward. 25From the day that your ancestors left Egypt to this day, I have sent my servants to you. My servants are the prophets. I sent them to you again and again. 26But your ancestors did not listen to me. They did not pay attention to me. They were very stubborn and did evil even worse than their fathers did.
27“Jeremiah, you will tell these things to the people of Judah. But they will not listen to you. You call to them, but they will not answer you. 28So you must tell them these things: ‘This is the nation that did not obey the Lord its God. These people did not listen to God’s teachings. They don’t know the true teachings.’
The Valley of Slaughter
29“Jeremiah, cut off your hair and throw it away.#7:29 cut … away This showed that Jeremiah was sad. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry, because the Lord has rejected this generation of people. He has turned his back on these people. And in anger he will punish them. 30Do this because I have seen the people of Judah doing evil things.” This message is from the Lord. “They have set up their idols, and I hate those idols. They have set up idols in the Temple that is called by my name. They have made my house ‘dirty’! 31The people of Judah built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom where they killed their own sons and daughters and burned them as sacrifices. This is something I never commanded. Something like this 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. No, they will call it the Valley of Slaughter. They will give it this name because they will bury the dead people in Topheth until there is no more room to bury anyone else. 33Then the bodies of the dead people will become food for the birds of the sky. Wild animals will eat the bodies of those people. There will be no one left alive to chase the birds or animals away. 34I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and happiness in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. There will be no more sounds of the bride and bridegroom in Judah or Jerusalem. The land will become an empty desert.”
Currently Selected:
Jeremiah 7: ERV
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
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."
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in