Jeremiah 7–9

1This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD.

3Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place.

4Do not trust in deceptive words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

5For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another,

6if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,

7then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

8But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

9Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,

10and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’?

11Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD.

12But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

13And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,

14therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers.

15And I will cast you out of My presence, just as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

16As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.

17Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

19But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?

20Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

21This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!

22For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

23but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

24Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

25From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again.

26Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

27When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.

28Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.

29Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

30For the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

31They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

32So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.

33The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away.

34I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

1“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

2They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground.

3And wherever I have banished them, the remnant of this evil family will choose death over life,” declares the LORD of Hosts.

4So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says: “Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not return?

5Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.

6I have listened and heard; they do not speak what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, asking, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone has pursued his own course like a horse charging into battle.

7Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.

8How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us,’ when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has produced a deception?

9The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what wisdom do they really have?

10Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

11They dress the wound of the daughter of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.

12Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse, says the LORD.

13I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the tree, and even the leaf will wither. Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.”

14Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the LORD our God has doomed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

15We hoped for peace, but no good has come, for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

16The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.

17“For behold, I will send snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the LORD.

18My sorrow is beyond healing; my heart is faint within me.

19Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away: “Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images, with their worthless foreign idols?”

20“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, but we have not been saved.”

21For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed. I mourn; horror has gripped me.

22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?

1Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

2If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

3“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.

4“Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.

5Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.

6You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

7Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?

8Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.

9Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”

10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.

11“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

12Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?

13And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.

14Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

15Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

16I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

17This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.

18Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

19For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

20Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.

21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

22Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”

23This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.

24But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth— for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

25“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—

26Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”