Jeremiah 7–8

CHAPTER 7

Yahweh’s Warning from the Temple Gate

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,

²“^aStand in the gate of the house of Yahweh, and you shall call out there this word, and you shall say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship Yahweh!’”

³Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “^aMake your ways and your deeds good, and I will let you dwell in this place.

⁴“^aDo not trust in lying words, saying, ‘¹This is the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh.’

⁵“For ^aif you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly ^bdo justice between a man and his neighbor,

⁶if you do not oppress the sojourner, the ^1aorphan, or the widow, and do not shed ^binnocent blood in this place, nor ^cwalk after other gods to your own evil demise,

⁷then I will let you ^adwell in this place, in the ^bland that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

⁸“Behold, you are trusting in ^alying words to no avail.

⁹“Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear while lying, and ^aburn incense to Baal and walk after ^bother gods that you have not known,

¹⁰then ^acome and stand before Me in ^bthis house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations?

¹¹“Has ^athis house, which is called by My name, become a ^brobbers’ den in your sight? Behold, ^cI, even I, have seen it,” declares Yahweh.

¹²“But go now to My place which was in ^aShiloh, where I ^bmade My name dwell at the first, and ^csee what I did to it because of the evil of My people Israel.

¹³“And now, because you have done all these works,” declares Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, ^arising up early and ^bspeaking, but you did not hear, and I ^ccalled you but you did not answer,

¹⁴therefore, I will do to the ^ahouse which is called by My name, ^bin which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I ^cdid to Shiloh.

¹⁵“I will ^acast you out of My presence, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the seed of ^bEphraim.

¹⁶“As for you, ^ado not pray for this people and do not lift up a cry of lamentation or prayer for them and do not intercede with Me, for I am not hearing you.

¹⁷“Are you not seeing what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸“The ¹children gather wood, and the fathers make the fire burn, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they ^apour out drink offerings to other gods in order to ^bprovoke Me.

¹⁹“^aDo they provoke Me?” declares Yahweh. “Is it not themselves they provoke to the ^bshame of their own face?”

²⁰Therefore thus says Lord Yahweh, “Behold, My ^aanger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the ^btrees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your ^aburnt offerings to your sacrifices and ^beat flesh.

²²“For I did not ^aspeak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

²³“But this is ¹what I commanded them, saying, ‘^aListen to My voice, and ^bI will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in the entire way which I command you, that it may ^cbe well with you.’

²⁴“Yet they ^adid not listen or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart and ^1bwent backward and not forward.

²⁵“Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have ^asent you all My slaves the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

²⁶“Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but ^astiffened their neck; they ^bdid more evil than their fathers.

²⁷“You shall ^aspeak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will ^bnot answer you.

²⁸“You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that ^adid not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God or receive discipline; ^1btruth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.

²⁹‘^aCut off ¹your hair and cast it away,

And ^blift up a funeral lamentation on the bare heights;

For Yahweh has ^crejected and abandoned

The generation of His wrath.’

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares Yahweh, “they have ^aset their detestable things in the house, which is called by My name, to defile it.

³¹“They have ^abuilt the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to ^bburn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I ^cdid not command, and it did not come upon My heart.

³²“^aTherefore, behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when it will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will ^bbury in Topheth ¹because there is no other place.

³³“The ^adead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away.

³⁴“Then I will make to ^acease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the ^bland will become a waste place.

CHAPTER 8

The Faithlessness of Jerusalem

¹“At that time,” declares Yahweh, “they will ^abring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves.

²“And they will spread them out to the sun, the moon, and to all the ^ahost of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served, and which they have walked after and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered ^bor buried; ^cthey will be as dung on the face of the ground.

³“And ^adeath will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the ^bplaces to which I have banished them,” declares Yahweh of hosts.

⁴“You shall say to them, ‘Thus says Yahweh,

“Do men ^afall and not get up again?

Does one turn away and not ¹turn back?

⁵“Why then has this people, Jerusalem,

^1aTurned away in continual faithlessness?

They ^bhold fast to deceit;

They ^crefuse to return.

⁶“I ^ahave given heed and heard,

They have spoken what is not right;

^bNo man regretted his evil,

Saying, ‘What have I done?’

Everyone turned to his course,

Like a ^chorse charging into the battle.

⁷“Even the stork in the sky

^aKnows her seasons;

And the ^bturtledove and the swift and the crane

Keep the time of their ¹migration;

But ^cMy people do not know

The legal judgment of Yahweh.

⁸“^aHow can you say, ‘We are wise,

And the law of Yahweh is with us’?

But behold, the lying pen of the scribes

Has made it into a lie.

⁹“The wise men are ^aput to shame;

They are dismayed and captured;

Behold, they have ^brejected the word of Yahweh,

And what kind of wisdom do they have?

¹⁰“Therefore I will ^agive their wives to others,

Their fields to ¹new possessors,

Because from the least even to the greatest

Everyone is ^bgreedy for gain;

From the prophet even to the priest

Everyone practices lying.

¹¹“They ^aheal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,

Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

But there is no peace.

¹²“Were they ^aashamed because of the abomination they had done?

They certainly were not ashamed,

And they did not know how to feel dishonor;

Therefore they shall ^bfall among those who fall;

At the ^ctime of their ¹punishment they shall be brought down,”

Says Yahweh.

¹³“I will ^asurely gather them up,” declares Yahweh;

“There will be ^bno grapes on the vine

And ^cno figs on the fig tree,

And the leaf will wither;

And what I have given them will pass away.” ’ ”

¹⁴Why are we sitting still?

^aGather yourselves, and let us ^bgo into the fortified cities

And let us be silent there

Because Yahweh our God has silenced us

And given us ^1cpoisoned water to drink,

For ^dwe have sinned against Yahweh.

¹⁵We ^awaited for peace, but there was no good;

For a time of healing, but behold, terror!

¹⁶From ^aDan is heard the snorting of his horses;

At the sound of the neighing of his ^bvaliant steeds

The whole land quakes;

And they come and ^cdevour the land as well as its fullness,

The city and its inhabitants.

¹⁷“For behold, I am ^asending serpents against you,

Vipers, for which there is ^bno charm,

And they will bite you,” declares Yahweh.

Sorrow over Zion

¹⁸¹My ^asorrow is beyond healing;

My ^bheart is faint within me!

¹⁹Behold, the sound! The cry of the daughter of my people from a ^adistant land:

“Is Yahweh not in Zion? Is her King not within her?”

“Why have they ^bprovoked Me to anger with their graven images, with foreign ^1cidols?”

²⁰“Harvest is past, summer is ended,

And we are not saved.”

²¹For the ^abrokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken;

I ^bmourn, desolation has taken hold of me.

²²Is there no ^abalm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

^bWhy then has not the ¹health of the daughter of my people gone up?