Jeremiah 7–8

Evil in the Land

7The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ^2j“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^kAmend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ^4lDo not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

⁵“For if you truly ^mamend your ways and your deeds, if you truly ⁿexecute justice one with another, ⁶if you ⁿdo not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, ^mor shed innocent blood in this place, ^oand if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ^7pthen I will let you dwell in this place, ^qin the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

⁸“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ^9rWill you steal, murder, commit adultery, ^sswear falsely, ^tmake offerings to Baal, ^oand go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, ^uwhich is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ^11vHas this house, ^uwhich is called by my name, ^wbecome a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. ¹²Go now to ^xmy place that was in Shiloh, ^ywhere I made my name dwell at first, and ^zsee what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. ¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and ^awhen I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and ^bwhen I called you, you did not answer, ¹⁴therefore I will do to ^cthe house ^uthat is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, ^zas I did to Shiloh. ^15cAnd I will cast you out of my sight, ^das I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of ^eEphraim.

¹⁶“As for you, ^fdo not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, ^gand the women knead dough, to ^hmake cakes for ⁱthe queen of heaven. And ^jthey pour out drink offerings to other gods, ^kto provoke me to anger. ^19lIs it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, ^mto their own shame? ²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, ⁿmy anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; ^oit will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^p“Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them ^qconcerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them: ^r‘Obey my voice, and ^sI will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^tAnd walk in all the way that I command you, ^uthat it may be well with you.’ ^24vBut they did not obey or incline their ear, ^wbut walked in their own counsels and ^xthe stubbornness of their evil hearts, and ^ywent backward and not forward. ²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, ^zI have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. ^26vYet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, ^abut stiffened their neck. ^bThey did worse than their fathers.

^27c“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. ^dYou shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; ^etruth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

^29f“ ‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;

raise a lamentation on ^gthe bare heights,

for the Lord has rejected and forsaken

the generation of his wrath.’

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set ^htheir detestable things in the house ⁱthat is called by my name, to ^hdefile it. ³¹And they have built the high places of ^jTopheth, which is in ^kthe Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^lto burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, ^mwhich I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²ⁿTherefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called ^jTopheth, or ^kthe Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; ^ofor they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. ^33pAnd the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, ^qand none will frighten them away. ^34rAnd I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, ^sfor the land shall become a waste.

8“At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. ²And they shall be spread ^tbefore the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. ^uAnd they shall not be gathered or buried. ^vThey shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ^3wDeath shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family ^xin all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

⁴“You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:

^yWhen men fall, do they not rise again?

If one turns away, does he not return?

⁵Why then has this people ^zturned away

in perpetual ^abacksliding?

^bThey hold fast to deceit;

they refuse to return.

^6cI have paid attention and listened,

but they have not spoken rightly;

no man relents of his evil,

saying, ‘What have I done?’

Everyone turns to his own course,

^dlike a horse plunging headlong into battle.

⁷Even the stork in the heavens

knows her times,

and ^ethe turtledove, ^fswallow, and crane¹

keep the time of their coming,

^gbut my people know not

the rules² of the Lord.

^8h“How can you say, ‘We are wise,

and the law of the Lord is with us’?

But behold, the lying pen of the scribes

has made it into a lie.

⁹ⁱThe wise men shall be put to shame;

they shall be dismayed ^jand taken;

behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,

so what wisdom is in them?

^10kTherefore I will give their wives to others

and their fields to conquerors,

because from the least to the greatest

everyone ^lis greedy for unjust gain;

from prophet to priest,

everyone deals falsely.

¹¹They have healed ^mthe wound of my people lightly,

saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

when there is no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?

No, ⁿthey were not at all ashamed;

they did not know how to blush.

^oTherefore they shall fall among the fallen;

when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

says the Lord.

¹³When I would gather them, declares the Lord,

there are ^qno grapes on the vine,

^rnor figs on the fig tree;

^seven the leaves are withered,

and what I gave them has passed away from them.”³

¹⁴Why do we sit still?

^tGather together; ^tlet us go into the fortified cities

and perish there,

for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish

and has ^ugiven us ^vpoisoned water to drink,

because we have sinned against the Lord.

^15wWe looked for peace, but no good came;

for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

^16x“The snorting of their horses is heard ^yfrom Dan;

at the sound of the neighing ^zof their stallions

^athe whole land quakes.

They come ^band devour the land and all that fills it,

the city and those who dwell in it.

¹⁷For behold, I am sending among you ^cserpents,

adders ^dthat cannot be charmed,

^eand they shall bite you,”

declares the Lord.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

¹⁸My joy is gone; grief is upon me;⁴

^fmy heart is sick within me.

¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people

from ^gthe length and breadth of the land:

“Is the Lord not in Zion?

^hIs her King not in her?”

ⁱ“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images

and with their foreign idols?”

²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

and we are not saved.”

²¹For the wound of ^jthe daughter of my people is my heart wounded;

^kI mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no ^lbalm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

not been restored?