21 Thus 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.