1 This is the Lord's message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 Go and stand in the entrance to the Lord's Temple, and deliver this message: Listen to what Lord has to say, all of you from Judah who are coming in through these gates to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says:
5 If you sincerely change your ways and do what's right, if you treat each other fairly, 6 if you stop mistreating foreigners and orphans and widows, and if you stop murdering innocent people and stop hurting yourselves by worshiping, 7 then I'll let you go on living here in the country that I gave to your forefathers forever and ever.
8 But look at you! You go on believing in these deceptions, these worthless words. 9 Are you really going to continue stealing, murdering, committing adultery, and lying, burning incense to Baal, and worshiping other gods that you know nothing about, 10 and then come and stand before me in my own Temple and say, “We're safe, so we can continue doing all these offensive things”? 11 Do you see this house, my own Temple, as a den of thieves? Well, that's what it looks like to me too, declares the Lord.
12 So why don't you go to Shiloh†See Psalms 78:60. where I first made myself a place for me to live with you, and see what I did to it because of the evil my people Israel did? 13 I've warned you time and again about all these things you've done but you've refused to listen, declares the Lord. I've called out to you but you didn't want to answer me.
14 So now I'm going to do to my Temple, what I did to Shiloh. This is the Temple your put your faith in, the place I gave to you and your forefathers. 15 I will throw you out of my presence, just as I expelled all your Israelite relatives, all the descendants of Ephraim.‡Referring to the capture and exile of the ten northern tribes.
16 You, Jeremiah, are not to pray for these people. Don't cry out to me in prayer for them, don't plead with me on their behalf, because I won't listen to you. 17 Can't you see how they're behaving in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children collect the firewood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods to make me angry and hurt. 19 But is it really me they're hurting? declares the Lord. Aren't they really hurting themselves and bringing shame on themselves?
20 So this is what the Lord God says: Watch! My furious anger and will be poured out on this country, on people and animals, on the orchards and the crops in the field. It will burn and nobody will be able to put it out.
21 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You can add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat all the meat yourselves!§This was of course not permitted in Levitical law. However, what the Lord is saying is that since he won't accept their sacrifices they might as well eat all of the meat themselves. 22 When I led your forefathers out of Egypt I didn't just give them instructions about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 This is the commandment I gave them: Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow everything I have commanded you to do, so that all will go well for you.
24 But they refused to listen or pay attention. Instead they followed the desires of their own stubborn and evil thinking, so they ended up going backward and not forward. 25 From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, I have sent you time after time my servants the prophets. 26 But you refused to listen or pay them attention. Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your forefathers!
27 When you tell them all this, they won't listen to you. When you call out to them, they won't answer. 28 So you have to tell them, “This is the nation that refused to listen to what the Lord their God said, and would not accept the Lord's discipline. Truth has died out; people don't even talk about it. 29 Cut off your hair and throw it away.*Either as a sign of mourning (which was forbidden in Deuteronomy 14:1, presumably as a pagan practice), or as a sign they had broken their vow to God as if they were a Nazarite (Numbers 6:5). Sing a song of mourning on the bare hills, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation who made him angry.”
30 For the people of Judah have done what is evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have placed their offensive idols in my own Temple, making it unclean. 31 They have built pagan shrines at Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom so they could sacrifice their sons and daughters by burning them in the fire. This is something I never commanded. I never even thought of such a thing!
32 So watch out! The time is coming, declares the Lord, when instead of Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom this place will be called the Valley of Killing. People will bury their dead in Topheth until it's full. 33 The dead bodies of these people will be food for birds of prey and wild animals, and there won't be anyone to scare them away.
34 I will put a stop to the cheerful sounds of celebration and the happy voices of the bride and bridegroom from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the country will be turned into a wasteland.
<- Jeremiah 6Jeremiah 8 ->- a In other words, because the Lord's Temple was located in Jerusalem, the Lord would never allow the city to be conquered.
- b See Psalms 78:60.
- c Referring to the capture and exile of the ten northern tribes.
- d This was of course not permitted in Levitical law. However, what the Lord is saying is that since he won't accept their sacrifices they might as well eat all of the meat themselves.
- e Either as a sign of mourning (which was forbidden in Deuteronomy 14:1, presumably as a pagan practice), or as a sign they had broken their vow to God as if they were a Nazarite (Numbers 6:5).