Jeremiah 7:28–9:2

28 And 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.

29  f“ ‘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. 31 And 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. 32 nTherefore, 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. 33 pAnd 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. 34 rAnd 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. 2 And 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. 3 wDeath 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?

5  Why then has this people zturned away

in perpetual abacksliding?

bThey hold fast to deceit;

they refuse to return.

6  cI 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.

7  Even 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.

8  h“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.

9  iThe 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?

10  kTherefore 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.

11  They have healed mthe wound of my people lightly,

saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

when there is no peace.

12  Were 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.

13  When 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

14  Why 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.

15  wWe looked for peace, but no good came;

for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

16  x“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.

17  For 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

18  My joy is gone; grief is upon me;4

fmy heart is sick within me.

19  Behold, 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.”

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

kI mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

22  Is there no lbalm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

not been restored?

9 1 mOh that my head were waters,

and my eyes a fountain of tears,

that I might weep day and night

for the slain of jthe daughter of my people!

2  2 Oh that I had in the desert

a travelers’ lodging place,

that I might leave my people

and go away from them!

For they are all nadulterers,

a company of otreacherous men.