Jeremiah 7:1–8:22

Message at the Temple Gate

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

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

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

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

⁵“For ^aif you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly ^bpractice justice between a man and his neighbor,

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

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 ^adeceptive words to no avail.

⁹“Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and ^1aoffer sacrifices 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 ^bden of robbers in your sight? Behold, ^cI, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.

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 wickedness of My people Israel.

¹³“And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord, “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 sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the ¹offspring of ^bEphraim.

¹⁶“As for you, ^ado not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you.

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

¹⁸“The ¹children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, 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 ^bspite Me.

¹⁹“^aDo they spite Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves they spite, to ¹their own ^bshame?”

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord ¹God, “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 the Lord 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, ‘^aObey My voice, and ^bI will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may ^cbe well with you.’

²⁴“Yet they ^adid not obey 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 servants the prophets, daily rising 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 obey the voice of the Lord their God or accept correction; ^1btruth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.

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

And ^btake up a lamentation on the bare heights;

For the Lord has ^crejected and forsaken

The generation of His wrath.’

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the Lord, “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 into My ¹mind.

³²“^aTherefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “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 ruin.

Chapter 8

The Sin and Treachery of Judah

¹“At that time,” declares the Lord, “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“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 gone 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 driven them,” declares the Lord of hosts.

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

“Do men ^afall and not get up again?

Does one turn away and not ¹repent?

⁵“Why then has this people, Jerusalem,

^aTurned away in continual apostasy?

They ^bhold fast to deceit,

They ^crefuse to return.

⁶“I ^ahave listened and heard,

They have spoken what is not right;

^bNo man repented of his wickedness,

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 thrush

Observe the time of their ¹migration;

But ^cMy people do not know

The ordinance of the Lord.

⁸“^aHow 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“The wise men are ^aput to shame,

They are dismayed and caught;

Behold, they have ^brejected the word of the Lord,

And what kind of wisdom do they have?

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

Their fields to ¹new owners;

Because from the least even to the greatest

Everyone is ^bgreedy for gain;

From the prophet even to the priest

Everyone practices deceit.

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 blush;

Therefore they shall ^bfall among those who fall;

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

Says the Lord.

¹³“I will ^asurely snatch them away,” declares the Lord;

“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?

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

And let us perish there,

Because the Lord our God has doomed us

And given us ^cpoisoned water to drink,

For ^dwe have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵We ^awaited for peace, but no good came;

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 ^bstallions

The whole land quakes;

For they come and ^cdevour the land and its fullness,

The city and its inhabitants.

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

Adders, for which there is ^bno charm,

And they will bite you,” declares the Lord.

¹⁸¹My ^asorrow is beyond healing,

My ^bheart is faint within me!

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

“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not within her?”

“Why have they ^bprovoked Me 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, dismay 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 ²been restored?