Jeremiah 7:1–8:22

Jeremiah’s Proclamation at the Gate of the House of Yahweh

7The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,^{a 2}“Stand in the gate of the house of Yahweh and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all of Judah, those who enter through these gates to bow in worship to Yahweh. ³Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good and let me dwell with you in this place. ⁴Do not trust in the deceitful words,^b saying,^c ‘The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, they are the temple of Yahweh.’ ⁵For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor, ⁶you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, you do not shed innocent blood in this place, and you do not go after other gods to your harm,^{d 7}then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors^e forever and ever.^f

⁸Look, you are relying for yourselves on deceitful words^g without benefiting. ⁹Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear falsely?^h And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known? ¹⁰And then you come and you stand beforeⁱ me in this house, which is called by my name,^j and you say, ‘we are safe to go on doing^k all of these detestable things.’ ¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name,^l become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen it,” ^m declaresⁿ Yahweh.

¹²“For go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell in the beginning, and see what I did to it because of^o the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³And now, because of your doing all these things,” declares^p Yahweh, “and I have spoken to you over and over again,^q and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered, ¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name,^r in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors^s what^t I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight^u just as I cast out all of your blood relatives,^v all of the offspring of Ephraim.” ’

¹⁶“And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children are gathering wood, and the fathers are kindling the fire, and the women are kneading dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods for the sake of provoking me to anger. ¹⁹Are they provoking me to anger? ” declares^w Yahweh, “Is it not themselves they hurt, for the sake of the shame of their faces?” ²⁰Therefore^x thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on the humankind, and on the animal, and on the tree of the field, and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be extinguished.”

²¹Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For I did not speak with your ancestors,^y nor did I command them in the day of bringing them out from the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offering and sacrifice. ²³But I only commanded them this word, saying,^z ‘Obey my voice, and I will be to you God, and you will be to me people, and you must walk in all of the way that I command you, so that it goes well with you.’ ²⁴Yet they did not obey, and they did not incline their ear, but they walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and they became worse instead of better.^{a 25}From the day that your ancestors^b came out from the land of Egypt until this day I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, sending again and again.^{c 26}Yet they have not listened to me and they have not inclined their ear, but they have hardened their neck, they did more evil than their ancestors.^{d 27}So you shall speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you, and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

The Valley of the Slaughter

²⁸“And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the voice of Yahweh their God, and they have not accepted discipline. The truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouths.^{e 29}Shear your hair and throw it^f away, and lift up a lament on the barren heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’ ³⁰For the people ^g of Judah have done evil in my eyes,” declares^h Yahweh, “They have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name,ⁱ to defile it. ³¹And they built the high place of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, and it did not come into my mind.^{j 32}Therefore look, days are about to come,” declares^k Yahweh, “and it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter, and they will bury in Topheth until there is no more place.^{l 33}And the dead bodies^m of this people will be as food for the birdsⁿ of the heavens,^o and for the animals^p of the earth, without anyone to scare them^q away. ³⁴And I will cause to disappear from the towns of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of jubilation, and the sound of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a site of ruins.

8“At that time,” declares^a Yahweh, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Judah from their graves. ²And they shall spread them out before the sun, and before the moon, and before all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and which they have gone after, and which they have inquired about, and to which they have bowed in worship. They shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground. ³And death will be preferred to life by all the remaining of this evil clan^b in all the remaining places where I have driven them away,” declares^c Yahweh of hosts.

Yahweh Questions His People

⁴“And you shall say to them, ‘Thus asks^d Yahweh:

“Do men fall and not stand up?

If one turns away does he not return?

⁵Why has this people, Jerusalem, turned away in enduring apostasy?

They have kept hold of deceit, they have refused to return.^e

⁶I have listened attentively,

and I have listened.

They do not speak honestly,

there is no man who regrets his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’

All of them are turning to their ways of running,

like a horse plunging into battle.

⁷Even the stork in heaven knows its appointed time,

and the turtledove, and the swallow, and the song bird,

they observe the time of their coming.

But my people do not know the ordinance^f of Yahweh.

⁸How can you say, ‘We are wise and the law of Yahweh is with us’?

Look, surely the lying stylus of the scribes^g has made it a lie.

⁹The wise will be put to shame,

they will be dismayed,

and they will get taken.

Look, they have rejected the word of Yahweh,

and what is wisdom to them?

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to others,

their fields to conquerors,

because from the smallest to the greatest,

all of them make profit for unlawful gain,

from prophet to priest,

all of them practice deceit.

¹¹And they have treated the wound of the daughter of my people lightly,

saying,^h ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed, for they had committed a detestable thing?

What’s worse,ⁱ they were not ashamed at all,

and they did not know to feel humiliated.

Therefore^j they will fall among those who fall;

at the time of their punishment they will stumble,” says Yahweh.

¹³“I will take away their harvest,”^k declares^l Yahweh.

“There are no grapes on the vine,

and there are no figs on the fig tree,

and the leaves wither,

and what I gave to them passed over them.” ’ ”

The Nation Longs for Yahweh’s Help

¹⁴Why are we sitting?

Gather, and let us go into the fortified cities,

and let us perish there,

for Yahweh our God has caused us to perish,

and has provided drink for us, water of poison,

because we have sinned against Yahweh.

¹⁵We hope for peace,

but there is no good,

for a time of healing,

but there is terror.

¹⁶“From Dan is heard the snorting of their horses,

from the sound of the neighing of their stallions all the land quakes,

for they come and devour the land,

and that which fills the city,

and those who live in it.

¹⁷For look, I am letting loose among you snakes,

adders for which there is no incantation,

and they will bite you,” declares^m Yahweh.

¹⁸“My comfort is gone from me,

sorrow is on me,

my heart is sick.

¹⁹Look, the sound of the cry for help of the daughter of my people

from a distant land,

‘Is Yahweh not in Zion?

Is her king not in her?’

Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,

with idols of a foreign land?”

²⁰The harvest has passed,

the summer has come to an end,

and we have not received help.ⁿ

Yahweh’s Lament

²¹“Because of the wound of the daughter of my people I am broken down,

I mourn, horror has seized me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no healer there?

Why, then, has the healing of the daughter of my people not been restored?