UST JER Chapter 7

◄ JER 7 ► ║ ═ ©

7 Yahweh gave me another message. He said to me, 2 “Go to the entrance of my temple and give this message to the people there: You people of Judah, who come here to worship Yahweh, listen to this message from Yahweh. 3 This is what Yahweh, Israel’s God, the commander of the angel armies, says to you: ‘If you stop doing evil things and start doing what is right, I will allow you to remain living in your land. 4 But some people are repeatedly saying to you, “The temple of Yahweh is here, so we will be safe; he will not allow us and the temple to be destroyed.” But do not believe what they say, because they are deceiving you. 5 I will act mercifully to you only if you fully change your behavior and stop doing evil things, and if you start to act fairly toward others, 6 and if you stop oppressing foreigners who live in your country, and orphans and widows, and if you stop killing innocent people in this land, and stop worshiping foreign gods which results in your own harm. 7 If you do what I have told you, I will allow you to stay in this land that I promised to your ancestors long ago that it would belong to them and their descendants forever.

8 Pay attention! People are repeatedly telling you, “The temple is here, so we are safe,” and you are believing that what they are saying is true, but those people are deceiving you; what they say is worthless. 9 You think that you can steal things, murder people, commit adultery, tell lies in court, and worship Baal and all those other gods that you did not know about previously. 10 Then you think you can come here and stand before me in front of this temple, which is my temple, and say “Nothing bad will happen to us!”, so that you may continue to do all these disgusting things. 11 I am appalled that you have made this temple, which is my temple, to become like a den where thieves hide! Know that I, Yahweh, see all the evil things that you people do there! This is what Yahweh has declared.

12 Long ago I put my sacred tent in the city of Shiloh, to be a place where people would worship me. Think about how I destroyed it because my people, the Israelites, did many wicked things there. 13 So now, because you did all those evil things, and I warned you about them many times, but you refused to listen and I called out to you, but you refused to answer me, 14 therefore, just like I destroyed Shiloh, I will now destroy this temple that was built for people to worship me, this temple that you trust in, that is in this place that I gave to you and your ancestors. 15 And I will expel you from my presence, just as I did to all your relatives, all the descendants of Ephraim.”

16 Yahweh said to me, “Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not weep or pray on their behalf and do not plead for me to help them, because I will not respond to your request. 17 Notice all the wicked things they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the other cities in Judah! 18 The children gather firewood and their fathers use it to make fires on the altars to burn sacrifices. The women knead dough to make cakes to offer to their goddess Astarte who people call the Queen of Heaven. And on their altars they pour out offerings of wine to their other idols. All of those things cause me to become extremely angry! 19 But I am not the one whom they are hurting! They are really hurting themselves by doing these things, to their own shame!” 20 So Yahweh the Lord says this: “Because I am extremely angry with what happens at this place, I will punish these people severely; my being very angry will be like a fire that will not be extinguished, and I will destroy the people and their animals and I will destroy their fruit trees and their crops.”

21 Therefore, this is what Yahweh, the commander of the armies of angels, the God of Israel, says: “Take away your offerings that you bring to burn completely on your altars and your other sacrifices; do not give them to me; eat them yourselves! 22 When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not offerings to be completely burned on the altar or other sacrifices that I wanted from them. 23 But what I told them was, ‘Obey me; if you do that, I will be your God and you will be my people. If you do all the things that I command you to do, life will go well for you.’ 24 But your ancestors would not obey me or pay any attention to me. They continued to do the evil things that they wanted to do, everything that in their stubborn inner beings they desired to do. Instead of coming closer to me, they went further away from me. 25 From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you repeatedly. 26 But you, my people, have not listened to me or paid attention to what I said; you have been stubborn, and you have done more sinful things than your ancestors did.”

27 Then Yahweh said to me, “You must tell all this to my people, but they will not obey what you tell them. You must call out my warnings to them, but they will not respond to you. 28 You must say to them, ‘You people of Judah have not obeyed the instruction of Yahweh, your God; you have not accepted it when he tried to correct you. No one among you is truthful; you do not say anything that is true; you speak only lies.’

29 So, tell them to cut off their hair and throw it away to show that they are mourning; tell them to go up into the barren hills and sing a mourning song,

because I have completely rejected this generation of people who have made me angry.” 30 Yahweh says this: “The people of Judah have done many things that I say are evil. They have set up their disgusting idols in my temple and as a result they have defiled it. 31 They have built altars at Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, and they sacrifice their sons and daughters on those altars. I never commanded them to do that; it was not even in my thoughts!” 32 Yahweh says, “So they should beware! There will be a time when that place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom; instead, it will be called the Valley of Slaughter. There will be a huge number of people who will be buried there, with the result that there will be no space to bury more bodies. 33 The corpses of my people that are not buried and are left on the ground will be eaten by vultures and wild animals, and there will be no one to chase them away. 34 In the streets of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah I will cause there to be no one singing and laughing anymore; there will be no more joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides, because the land will be completely destroyed.”