Jeremiah 7

1 Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me,

The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,

2 “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!

“Stand at the gate of Yahweh's house and proclaim this word! Say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, you who enter these gates to worship Yahweh.

3 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.'

Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, says this: Make your ways and practices good, and I will let you continue to live in this place.

4 [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.

Do not entrust yourself to deceitful words and say, “Temple of Yahweh! Temple of Yahweh! Temple of Yahweh!”

5 [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,

For if you actually make your ways and practices good; if you completely execute justice between a man and his neighbor—

6 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.

if you do not exploit the one staying in the land, the orphan, or the widow and do not pour out innocent blood in this place, and do not walk after other gods to your own harm—

7 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.

then I will let you stay in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors from ancient times and forever.

8 [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.

Behold! You are trusting in deceitful words that do not help you.

9 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,

Do you steal, kill, and commit adultery? Do you swear deceitfully and offer incense to Baal and walk after other gods whom you have not known?

10 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.

Then do you come and stand before me in this house that is called by my name and say, “We are saved,” so you can do all of these abominations?

11 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]?

Is this house, which carries my name, a den of bandits in your eyes? But behold, I have seen it—this is Yahweh's declaration.'

12 [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.

'So go to my place that was in Shiloh, where I allowed my name to stay there in the beginning, and look at what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 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].

So now, on account of your doing all of these practices—this is Yahweh's declaration—I spoke to you time and time again, but you did not listen. I summoned you, but you did not answer.

14 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.

Therefore, what I did to Shiloh, I will also do to this house that is called by my name, the house in which you have trusted, this place that I gave to you and your ancestors.

15 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.”

For I will send you out from before me just as I had sent out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.'

16 [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.

As for you, Jeremiah, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a lamenting wail or say a prayer on their behalf, and do not petition me, for I will not listen to you.

17 Do you see [the wicked things] that they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the [other] towns in Judah?

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

18 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!

The children are gathering wood and the fathers kindling the fire! The women are kneading dough to make cakes for the queen of the heavens and pour out drink offerings for other gods so that they will provoke me.

19 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!”

Are they truly provoking me?—this is Yahweh's declaration—is it not themselves whom they are provoking, so that shame is on them?

20 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.”

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says this, 'See, my anger and wrath will gush out onto this place, on both man and beast, on the tree in the fields and the fruit on the ground. It will burn and never be extinguished.'

21 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]!

Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel says this, 'Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and the meat from them.

22 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.

For when I brought your ancestors out from the land of Egypt, I did not require anything from them. I gave them no command about matters of burnt offerings and sacrifices.

23 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.’

I only gave them this command, “Listen to my voice, and I will be your God and you will be my people. So walk in all the ways that I am commanding you, so that it may go well with you.”

24 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.

But they did not listen or pay attention. They lived by their own stubborn plans of their wicked hearts, so they went backwards, not forward.

25 From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you.

Ever since the day when your ancestors went out from the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent every one of my servants, my prophets, to you. I persisted in sending them.

26 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.”

But they did not listen to me. They paid no attention. Instead, they hardened their necks. They were more wicked than their ancestors.'

27 [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.

So proclaim all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. Proclaim these things to them, but they will not answer you.

28 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].’

Say to them: This is a nation that does not listen to the voice of Yahweh its God and does not receive discipline. Truth is destroyed and cut off from their mouths.

29 [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.”

Cut off your hair and shave yourself, and throw away your hair. Sing a funeral song over the open places. For Yahweh has rejected and abandoned this generation in his rage.

30 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].

For the sons of Judah have done evil in my eye—this is Yahweh's declaration—they have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, in order to defile it.

31 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.

Then they built the high place of Topheth that is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. They did this to burn their sons and daughters in fire—something that I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

32 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.

So see, days are coming—this is Yahweh's declaration—when it will no longer be called Topheth or Valley of Ben Hinnom. It will be the Valley of Slaughter; they will bury bodies in Topheth until there is no room left.

33 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.

The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

34 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.”

I will put an end to the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the sound of the groom and the sound of the bride, for the land will become a desolation.”