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.”
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Jeremiah 7: ERV
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Jeremiah 7
7
Jeremiah’s Proclamation at the Gate of the House of Yahweh
1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,#Literally “to say” 2“Stand in the gate of the house of Yahweh and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all of Judah, those who enter through these gates to bow in worship to Yahweh. 3Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good and let me dwell with you in this place. 4Do not trust in the deceitful words,#Literally “the words of the deception” saying,#Literally “to say” ‘The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, they are the temple of Yahweh.’ 5For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor, 6you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, you do not shed innocent blood in this place, and you do not go after other gods to your harm,#Literally “to harm to you” 7then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors#Or “fathers” forever and ever.#Literally “from eternity and until eternity”
8Look, you are relying for yourselves on deceitful words#Literally “the words of the deception” without benefiting. 9Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear falsely?#Literally “to the lie” And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known? 10And then you come and you stand before#Literally “to the face of” me in this house, which is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” and you say, ‘we are safe to go on doing#Literally “for the sake of the doing of” all of these detestable things.’ 11Has this house, which is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen it,” #Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh.
12“For go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell in the beginning, and see what I did to it because of#Literally “from face” the wickedness of my people Israel. 13And now, because of your doing all these things,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “and I have spoken to you over and over again,#Literally “I spoke to you doing early and speaking” and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered, 14therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors#Or “fathers” what#Literally “as that” I did to Shiloh. 15And I will cast you out of my sight#Literally “from at my face” just as I cast out all of your blood relatives,#Or “brothers” all of the offspring of Ephraim.” ’
16“And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I will not hear you. 17Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children are gathering wood, and the fathers are kindling the fire, and the women are kneading dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods for the sake of provoking me to anger. 19Are they provoking me to anger? ” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “Is it not themselves they hurt, for the sake of the shame of their faces?” 20Therefore#Literally “To thus” thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on the humankind, and on the animal, and on the tree of the field, and on the fruit of the ground, and it will not be extinguished.”
21Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 22For I did not speak with your ancestors,#Or “fathers” nor did I command them in the day of bringing them out from the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offering and sacrifice. 23But I only commanded them this word, saying,#Literally “to say” ‘Obey my voice, and I will be to you God, and you will be to me people, and you must walk in all of the way that I command you, so that it goes well with you.’ 24Yet they did not obey, and they did not incline their ear, but they walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and they became worse instead of better.#Literally “they were to backward and not to face” 25From the day that your ancestors#Or “fathers” came out from the land of Egypt until this day I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, sending again and again.#Literally “doing early and sending” 26Yet they have not listened to me and they have not inclined their ear, but they have hardened their neck, they did more evil than their ancestors.#Or “fathers” 27So you shall speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you, and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
The Valley of the Slaughter
28“And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the voice of Yahweh their God, and they have not accepted discipline. The truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouths.#Hebrew “mouth” 29Shear your hair and throw it#Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation away, and lift up a lament on the barren heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’ 30For the people #Or “children” of Judah have done evil in my eyes,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “They have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name,#Literally “my name over it” to defile it. 31And they built the high place of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, and it did not come into my mind.#Or “heart” 32Therefore look, days are about to come,” declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, “and it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter, and they will bury in Topheth until there is no more place.#Literally “from there is no place” 33And the dead bodies#Hebrew “body” of this people will be as food for the birds#Hebrew “bird” of the heavens,#Or “sky” and for the animals#Hebrew “animal” of the earth, without anyone to scare them#Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation away. 34And I will cause to disappear from the towns of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of jubilation, and the sound of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a site of ruins.
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