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OEB by section JER 6:1

⌂ ← JER 6:1–11:17 → ║ ©

Messages from the Middle Period of Jeremiah’s Career

Salvation lies neither in Temple nor Ritual, but only in Repentance and Reform

7 The message which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah: 2 Take thy stand at the gate of the Temple, and there make the following proclamation. Say, Listen to this message from Jehovah, all ye men of Judah that enter these gates to worship Jehovah. 3 Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will guarantee this place as your permanent home. 4 But put no trust in lying messengers, who say: "This is the Temple of Jehovah, the Temple of Jehovah, the Temple of Jehovah." 5 For if you really amend your ways and your doings: if you really do justice as between man and man; 6 if you abstain from the oppression of the resident foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, from the shedding of innocent blood in this place, and from devotion to other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will guarantee you a home here for all time in the land that I gave your forefathers.

8 But see, you are putting your trust in doctrines that are as profitless as they are false. 9 What! you commit theft, murder, adultery, perjury, you burn sacrifice to the Baal, you run after other gods that are strange to you; 10 and then you (have the hardihood to) come and stand before me in this House which is called by My name, and say, "Now we are safe" – in order, forsooth, to carry on all these abominations. 11 This House which bears My name you regard, do you, as nothing but a robbers’ cave? Make no mistake: I – saith Jehovah – I have not been blind to all this.

12 I would ask you to visit My sanctuary in Shiloh, where I put My name at the first, and see what the wickedness of My people Israel constrained Me to do to it. 13 And so it will be now, saith Jehovah. Because you have perpetrated all these anormities, in defiance of My most earnest and repeated words, and have refused to respond to My call, 14 therefore this Temple in which you repose your trust – called by My name though it be – and the place that I gave to you and your forefathers, I will consign to the same fate as overtook Shiloh; 15 and I will hurl you out of My sight as I have hurled your brethren, the whole race of Ephraim.

16 As for thyself, offer no prayer for this people, raise no cry or prayer on their behalf, and make no intercession to Me, for I will not listen to thee. 17 Seest thou not what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to other gods, in order to vex Me. 19 Is it I, then, saith Jehovah, whom they are vexing? is it not rather themselves, doomed as they are to bring confusion upon their own faces? 20 Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, "My anger and My fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man and beast, upon trees of the field and fruit of the ground, and it shall blaze in unquenchable flame."

21 Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, Put the flesh of your burnt-offerings and your (other) sacrifices together, and make a common meal of them both alike; 22 for on the day that I brought your forefathers out of the land of Egypt, I gave them no commandment nor did I utter a syllable with regard to burnt offering or sacrifice. 23 But the commandment I gave them was this: Listen, I said, to My voice, and then I will be your God and you shall be My people, and take My commandments as the standard of all your life – this is the way to prosperity. 24 But, instead of inclining their ear and listening, they followed the dictates of their own stubborn and wicked hearts; they went backwards instead of forwards. 25 Ever since your forefathers came out of the land of Egypt, every day up to this very day I have been sending you early and late all My servants the prophets. 26 Instead, however, of inclining their ear, they stiffened their necks and behaved worse than their forefathers.

27 This, then, is the message thou art to address to them, though they will not listen to thee, nor respond to thy call – 28 thy message is to be this:

This is the folk that refused to listen

To the voice of Jehovah their God–

That refused to accept correction.

Sincerity is vanished,

It is found on their lips no more.

The Fearful Judgment upon Idolatry

29 Shear off thy locks – away with them–

Lift up a dirge on the heights:

For Jehovah hath spurned and forsaken

The race that hath roused Him to anger.

30 The people of Judah, saith Jehovah, have done the thing I abhor: the very House that bears My name they have defiled by introducing into it their abominable 31 worship. They have built a sanctuary of Topheth in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, for the burning of their sons and daughters in the fire, though this was no commandment of Mine – such a thing never entered into My mind.

32 Mark this therefore: days are coming, saith Jehovah, when it shall be no more called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, and Topheth shall be used as a burial-place for want of room (elsewhere). 33 The dead bodies of this people shall be devoured by the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and none shall scare them away. 34 In the cities of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem I will still the voice of mirth and gladness, and the voice of bridegroom and bride; for the land shall become a waste.

8 At the time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring out of their graves the bones of the kings, the princes, the priests, and the prophets, of Judah, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 2 and they shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, whom they loved and served and followed and sought and worshipped; and they shall remain ungathered and unburied, they shall be for dung on the face of the ground. 3 And in all places to which I have driven them, every man that is left of this evil family would choose rather death than life, saith Jehovah of Hosts.

The National Refusal to Repent and the Coming Retribution

4 Thou shalt say to them, Thus saith Jehovah:

Doth not one who has fallen rise up again,

And one who hath wandered turn back again?

5 Why, then, doth thy people keep turning

For ever and ever backward,

Clinging to ways deceitful,

Refusing to return?

6 I have listened with ear intent–

And their words are utterly false.

Not a man repents of his wickedness

Or thinks upon what he has done:

But each rushes on in his course

As a war-horse rushes in battle.

7 The very stork in the heavens

Doth know her appointed seasons;

The turtle, the swift, and the swallow,

Observe the time of their coming:

But the ordinance of Jehovah

My people doth not know.

8 How can ye say, "We are wise,

And with us is the law of Jehovah"?

For see! the false pen of the scribes

Hath turned it into a falsehood.

9 So the wise shall be put to shame,

Be dismayed and taken captive.

They have spurned the word of Jehovah–

What manner of wisdom have they?

10 So their wives I will give unto others,

To conquerors their fields.

For, great and small alike,

They are all of them greedy of gain;

Prophet and priest alike–

Every man of them practiseth falsehood.

11 They would heal the hurt of My people

As though it were but slight;

"It is well, it is well," they say,

"When it is anything but well."

12 Are they at all abashed

At their deeds abominable?

Nay, they are unabashed,

They know not how to blush.

They shall therefore fall with the fallen;

In the hour of their visitation

They shall stumble, saith Jehovah.

13 When I, saith Jehovah, would gather their fruit,

There is not a grape on the vine;

There is not a fig on the fig tree,

All withered are the leaves.

14 "Why are we sitting still?

Assemble yourselves together,

Let us enter the fortified cities,

And there let us meet our doom;

For Jehovah our God hath doomed us,

Hath given us gall to drink,

Because we have sinned against Him.

15 We wait for peace, but no good cometh;

For a season of healing, but lo! dismay."

16 From Dan is heard the snort of his steeds,

At the sound of his stallions neighing

All the land doth tremble.

They come and devour the land

And all that is therein,

The city and her inhabitants.

17 For see! I will send amongst you

serpents of basilik order,

Which cannot be charmed at all;

And they, saith Jehovah, shall bite you.

Jeremiah’s Lament over the Sin and the Doom of his people

18 Past healing is my sorrow,

My heart is heavy within me.

19 Hark! a voice is calling

From the daughter of my people

From a land that is far away:

"Is not Jehovah in Zion?

Is not her King therein?"

"With their images why have they vexed Me–

With futile foreign gods?"

20 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

And all unsaved are we."

21 For the daughter of my people,

All broken, mine own heart is broken;

I go about in mourning,

With the clutch of horror upon me.

22 Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why cometh then no healing

To the daughter of my people?

9 O that my head were waters,

And mine eyes a fountain of tears,

That day and night I might weep

For the slain of the daughter of my people!

2 O that I had in the desert

A spot such as travellers lodge in;

For then would I leave my people,

Yea, from them I would go;

For they be all adulterers,

A company of traitors,

That bend their tongue like a bow.

3 It is not the true, but the false,

That has mastery in the land;

For they pass from evil to evil,

And they know not Me, saith Jehovah.

4 Let each man beware of his neighbour,

And trust not any brother:

For brothers are tricksters, all of them,

And neighbours are slanderers all.

5 They all deceive one another,

The truth they will not speak;

They have taught their tongue to lie,

They behave like knaves and fools.

6 Oppression upon oppression,

Deceit upon deceit:

They refuse, saith Jehovah, to know Me.

7 Therefore thus saith Jehovah of Hosts,

Behold I will smelt them and test them,

For alas! I must turn Mine eyes away

From the daughter of My people.

8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow,

The words of their mouth are deceit;

They speak their neighbour fair,

But at heart they are laying a trap for him.

9 And crimes like these, saith Jehovah,

Am I to leave unpunished?

Shall not My soul be avenged

On a nation such as this?

10 Lift a lament for the mountains,

A dirge for the wilderness pastures;

For wasted they lie and untraversed,

No lowing of cattle they hear:

The birds of the air and the beasts

Are fled away and gone.

11 I will make of Jerusalem ruins,

A place for jackals to haunt;

I will make of the cities of Judah

An uninhabited waste.

12 Where is the man that Jehovah

Himself hath communed with and charged

To declare why the land us a ruin,

Laid waste like the untravelled wilderness?

13 And Jehovah said unto me:

Because they forsook My law

Which I had set before them,

And did not live thereby,

But disobeyed My voice,

14 And followed their stubborn hearts,

And the Baals that their fathers had taught them:

15 Therefore thus saith Jehovah of Hosts,

The God of Israel; Behold,

I will feed this people with wormwood,

And give them gall to drink.

16 I will scatter them far among nations

To them and their fathers unknown;

The sword I will send to pursue them,

Until I have clean consumed them.

17 Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts:

Now mark ye well and summon

The women that chant in dirges;

And send for the skilful women,

That they may come in haste,

18 And lift up for us a lament;

That our eyes may run with tears,

And our eyelids gush with water.

19 Hark! from Zion float sounds of wailing,

"Alas!how are we spoiled;

We are put to utter shame,

Because we have left the land,

And our homes are hurled to the ground."

20 Hear then, ye women, the word of Jehovah,

Received with your ears the word of His mouth,

And teach this lament to your daughters,

Each one to her neighbour this dirge:

21 "Death hath climbed up to our windows,

And into our palaces entered,

sweeping the child from the streets

And the youth from the broad open spaces.

22 The corpses of men are fallen

Like dung on the face of the field;

Or like sheaves behind the reaper,

With none to gather them up."

The True Glory of a Man

23 Thus saith Jehovah:

Let the wise man not boast of his wisdom,

Let the strong man not boast of his strength;

Let the rich man not boast of his riches,

24 But in this be the boaster’s boast–

In insight and knowledge of Me

As Jehovah, who over the earth

Doeth kindness and justice and right;

For these are the things that I love.

The Necessity for Circumcision of Heart

25 Mark this well, saith Jehovah: days are coming when I will punish all those that, though circumcised (in flesh) are uncircumcised (in heart) – 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all those denizens of the wilderness that have the corners of their hair clipped; for while all the nations are uncircumcised, the whole household of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

The Folly of Fearing the Impotent and Unreal Gods of the Heathen

10 Listen, O household of Israel, to the word which Jehovah hath spoken to you. 2 Thus saith Jehovah:

Learn not the ways of the heathen,

And be not dismayed at the signs in the sky,

As the heathen are dismayed;

3 For heathen religion is vapour.

A tree is cut down in the forest

And fashioned by craftsman’s axe,

4a Adorned with silver and gold–

4b And fastened with nails and hammers,

To keep them from toppling over.

5 They are altogether dumb,

Like a scarecrow in garden of cucumbers;

Carried they must needs be,

For they cannot go of themselves.

Be not afraid of them, then,

For they have it not in their power

To do either good or harm.

6 There is none like Thee, O Jehovah;

Thou art great, and great is Thy name in might.

7 Who should not fear Thee, O King of the nations?

For Thee it becometh well;

For among the wise men of the nations all,

And among their kingdoms all,

There is none that is like unto Thee.

8 One and all, they are senseless and silly,

Instructed of gods that are wooden.

9 With silver beat fine, brought from Tarshish,

And gold that cometh from Ophir–

And wrought by the craftsman and goldsmith,

And robed in blue and in purple–

The work of skilled men are they all–

10 But Jehovah is God indeed,

A living God, and a King everlasting;

The earth at His wrath doth tremble,

His anger no nation can bear.

12 He created the earth by His power,

He established the world by His wisdom,

He stretched out the heavens by His skill.

13 When He uttereth His voice,

The waters roar in the heavens,

And He causeth vapour to rise

From the uttermost ends of the earth.

Lightnings He made for the rain,

And the wind He brings out of His storehouses.

14 How foolish is man with his knowledge!

The goldsmith is shamed by his image;

His idols are delusion,

15 They are an empty mockery,

In the hour of their trial they shall perish.

16 Not such is the Portion of Jacob,

His God is the Framer of all things:

Jehovah of Hosts is His name.

The Approaching Doom of Exile

17 Take up thy pack from the ground,

(O Jerusalem), that sittest beleaguered.

18 For thus saith Jehovah, Behold,

This time I will surely sling out

The inhabitants of the land,

And bring them into such straits

That they shall melt for fear.

19 Ah! woe is me! I am broken,

And smitten very sore,

"Yes, this is a stroke indeed,"

Said I, "and I must bear it.

20 My tent is despoiled and perished,

And all my cords are broken;

My flock is vanished clean.

There is none to stretch my tent,

Or to hang up my curtains more.

21 For the shepherds are foolish grown,

And nothing they care for Jehovah;

For this cause they have not prospered,

And all their flock is scattered.

22 Hark! a rumour! behold, it cometh,

A mighty uproar from the land of the north,

It shall make of the cities of Judah a waste,

A place to be haunted of jackals.

Prayer that Judgment may be Tempered with Mercy

23 Well, O Jehovah, I know

That a man’s way lies not with himself;`

It is not in the power of man

To walk and direct his steps.

24 When therefore Thou chastenest us,

Do Thou deal, O Jehovah, in measure,

And not in Thine indignation;

For so wouldst Thou bring us to nothing.

25 Pour out Thy wrath on the heathen,

That have not cared for Thee–

And on tribes that invoke not Thy name;

For Jacob they have devoured,

They have desolated his dwelling.

Jeremiah Exhorts the People to be True to the Demands of the Deuteronomic Law

11 The message which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah.

2 "Listen to the words of this covenant, and declare them to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 3 Say to them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Accursed be the man that refuses to listen to the words of the covenant 4 with which I charged your forefathers on the day that I brought them out of that iron furnace, the land of Egypt. I promised them then that, if they obeyed My voice, and conformed to all My commandments, they should be My people and I would be their God, 5 and thus the oath would be established that swore to their forefathers – to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day." Then I answered and said, "Amen, Jehovah."

6 Jehovah then said to me, "Make this proclamation throughout the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Listen to the words of this covenant and act upon them. 7 For early and late, ever since the day that I brought your forefathers out of the land of Egypt up to this day, I have been earnestly adjuring them to listen to My voice; 8 but instead of obediently inclining their ear, every man of them followed the dictates of his own wicked and stubborn heart; so I brought upon them all the threats of this covenant which I had charged them to observe, but which they failed to observe."

9 Further Jehovah said to me, "The people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem have been engaged in a manifest conspiracy (against Me). 10 They have reverted to the sins of their forefathers who refused to listen to My words, and they are actually indulging in the worship of other gods: the households of Israel and Judah alike have broken the covenant I made with their forefathers. 11 Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Mark this – I will bring upon them a disaster which they shall be powerless to escape; and when they cry to Me, I will turn a deaf ear. 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall go and cry to the gods to whom they burn sacrifice; but no help shall they get from them in the day of their calamity: 13 for your gods, O Judah, are as numerous as your cities; and as numerous as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up for sacrifice in the scandalous worship of the Baal.

14 As for thyself, offer no prayer for this people, raise no cry or prayer on their behalf; for I will not listed when they call to Me in the day of their calamity.

15 What business hath My Beloved

In My house, after conduct so vile?

Shall vows and the sacred flesh

Avert from thee thy doom

Then mightest thou rejoice.

16 A spreading, graceful olive

Jehovah had called thy name;

But to the roar of a mighty storm

He hath set it ablaze with lightning,

And the branches thereof are marred.

17 For Jehovah of Hosts that planted thee hath pronounced evil against thee in requital for the evil in which the households of Israel and Judah have vexatiously indulged, by burning sacrifice to the Baal."

A Plot against Jeremiah’s Life