Jeremias 7
Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,
2 Hear you the word of the Lord, all Judea.
“Go to the entrance of my temple, and give this message to the people: You people of Judah who worship here, listen to this message from Yahweh!
3 Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Correct your ways and your devices, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
The Commander of the armies of angels says to you, ['If you] stop doing evil things and start doing what is right, I will allow you to remain living in your land.'
4 Trust not in yourselves with lying words, for they shall not profit you at all, saying, It is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
[But some people] are repeatedly saying to you, ‘The temple of Yahweh is here, [so we will be safe]; [he will not allow us and the temple to be destroyed].’ But do not pay attention to what they say, because they are deceiving you.
5 For if you thoroughly correct your ways and your practices, and do indeed execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;
[I will act mercifully to you only] if you change your behavior and stop doing evil things, and if you [start to] act fairly/justly toward others,
6 and oppress not the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and go not after strange gods to your hurt:
and if you stop oppressing foreigners [who live in your country], and orphans and widows, and if you stop murdering people, and if you stop worshiping (foreign gods/idols). However, if you continue to do those things, you will be destroyed.
7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers of old and for ever.
If you do what I have told you, I will allow you to stay in this land that I promised to your ancestors that it would belong to them [and their descendants] forever.
8 But whereas you have trusted in lying words, whereby you shall not be profited;
[People are repeatedly] telling you, [‘The temple is here, so we are safe]’, and you are trusting/believing [that what they are saying is true], but it is a lie. [Those people are deceiving you, and what they say is] worthless.
9 and you murder, and commit adultery, and steal, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and are gone after strange gods whom you know not,
You think that [RHQ] you can steal things, murder people, commit adultery, tell lies in court, and worship Baal and all those other gods that you did not know about previously,
10 so that it is evil with you; yet have you come, and stood before me in the house, whereon my name is called, and you have said, We have refrained from doing all these abominations.
and then come here and stand in front of this temple, which is my temple, and say ‘Nothing bad will happen to us!’, while you continue to do all those abominable things.
11 Is my house, whereon my name is called, a den of robbers in your eyes? And, behold, I have seen [it], says the Lord.
Do you realize that you are causing this temple, which is my temple, to become like [MET] a den where bandits hide [RHQ]? Do you not know that I see [all the evil things that you people do there]?
12 For go you to my place with is in Selo, where I caused my name to dwell before, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
[Long ago] I put my Sacred Tent at Shiloh [city], to be a place where people would worship me [MTY]. Think about how I [destroyed it] because my people, the Israeli people, did [many] wicked things there.
13 And now, because you have done all these deeds, and I spoke to you, but you listened not to me; and I called you, but you answered not;
And while you were continually doing those wicked things, I told you about it many times, but you refused to listen. I called out to you, but you refused to answer [me].
14 therefore I also will do to the house whereon my name is called, wherein you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Selo.
Therefore, just like I destroyed Shiloh, I will [now] destroy this temple that was built for people to worship me [MTY], this temple that you trust in, that is in this place that I gave to you and your ancestors.
15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast away your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.
And I will expel you from this land and send you [to other countries] far away from me, just like I did to your relatives, the people of Israel.”
16 Therefore pray not you for this people, and intercede not for them to be pitied, yes, pray not, and approach me not for them: for I will not listen [to you].
[Yahweh said to me, “Jeremiah], do not pray for these people [any longer]. Do not cry for them or plead for [me to help] them, because I will not pay any attention to you.
17 Seest you not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
Do you see [the wicked things] that they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the [other] towns in Judah?
18 Their children gather wood, and their fathers kindle a fire, and their women knead dough, to make cakes to the host of heaven; and they have poured out drink-offerings to strange gods, that they might provoke me to anger.
The children gather firewood and their fathers use it to make fires [on the altars to burn sacrifices]. The women knead/make dough to make cakes to offer to [their goddess Astarte who is called] the Queen of Heaven. And [on their altars] they pour out offerings of wine to [their] other idols. All of those things cause me to become extremely angry!
19 Do they provoke me to anger? says the Lord: do they not [provoke] themselves, that their faces may be ashamed?
But I am not [RHQ] the one whom they are hurting; they are really [RHQ] hurting themselves [by doing these things for which they should be] very ashamed!”
20 Therefore thus says the Lord; Behold, my anger and wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon every tree of their field, and upon the fruits of the land; and it shall burn, and not be quenched.
So Yahweh the Lord says this: “Because I am extremely angry with [what happens at] this place, I will punish these people severely [MTY]; my being very angry will be [like] [MET] a fire that will not be extinguished, and I will destroy the people, [their] animals, [their] fruit trees, and [their] crops.”
21 Thus says the Lord, Gather your whole burnt offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh.
Therefore, this is what the Commander of the armies of angels says: “Take away [IRO] your offerings that you bring to burn completely on your altars and your [other] sacrifices; [don’t give them to me]; eat them [yourselves]!
22 For I spoke not to your fathers, and commanded them not in the day wherein I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifice:
When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not offerings to be completely burned on the altar or [other] sacrifices that I wanted from them.
23 but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hear you my voice, and I will be to you a God, and you shall be to me a people: and walk you in all my ways which I shall command you, that it may be well with you.
What I told them was, ‘Obey me; [if you do that], I will be your God and you will be my people. If you do the things that I want you to do, everything will go well for you.’
24 But they listened not to me, and their ear gave no heed, but they walked in the imaginations of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward;
But your ancestors would not pay any attention [DOU] to me. They continued to do [the evil things] that they wanted to do, everything that in their stubborn inner beings they desired to do. Instead of coming closer to me, they went further away from me.
25 from the day that their fathers went forth out of the land of Egypt, even until this day. And I sent to you all my servants, the prophets, by day and early in the morning: yes, I sent [them],
From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.
26 but they listened not to me, and their ear gave no heed; and they made their neck harder than their fathers.
But you, [my people], have not listened to me or paid attention to what I said; you have been stubborn, and you have done more sinful things than your ancestors did.”
27 Therefore you shall speak this word to them;
[Then Yahweh said to me], “When you tell all this to my people, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.
28 This is the nation which has not listened to the voice of the Lord, nor received correction: truth has failed from their mouth.
Say to them, ‘You people [of Judah] have not obeyed Yahweh, your God; you have not accepted it when he tried to correct you. No one among you is truthful; you do not say anything that is true; [you speak only lies].’
29 Cut off your hair, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on your lips; for the Lord has reprobated and rejected the generation that does these things.
[So, tell them to] cut off their hair [to show that they are mourning]; tell them to go up into the hills and sing a sad funeral song, because I have completely rejected [DOU] this generation [of people] who have made me angry.”
30 For the children of Juda have wrought evil before me, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house on which my name is called, to defile it.
Yahweh says this: “The people of Judah have done many things that I say are evil. They have set up their disgusting idols in my temple, causing it to become an unacceptable [place to worship me].
31 And they have built the altar of Taphes, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters with fire; which I did not command them [to do], neither did I design it in my heart.
They have built altars at Topheth in Ben-Hinnom Valley [outside Jerusalem], and they sacrifice their sons and daughters on those altars. I never commanded them to do that; I never even thought that anyone would do that.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Taphes, and the valley of the son of Ennom, but, The valley of the slain; and they shall bury in Taphes, for lack of room.
So they should beware! There will be a time when that place will no longer be called Topheth or the Hinnom Valley; instead, it will be called the Valley of Slaughter. There will be a huge number of people who will be buried there, with the result that there will be no space to bury more bodies.
33 And the dead bodies of this people shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the wild beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to drive [them] away.
The corpses of my people that are [not buried and are] left on the ground will be eaten by vultures and wild animals, and there will be no one to shoo/chase them away.
34 And I will destroy out of the cities of Juda, and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of them that make merry, and the voice of them that rejoice, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the whole land shall become a desolation.
There will be no one singing and laughing any more in the streets of Jerusalem; there will be no more joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides in Judah, because the land will be completely destroyed.”
