Shared Word Translation
Jeremiah 7
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
“Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD, and proclaim there this word. Say: Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah, you who enter these gates to worship the LORD.
Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your deeds good, and I will let you dwell in this place.
Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD—these are.’
For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good; if you truly do justice between one person and another;
if you do not oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow; if you do not shed innocent blood in this place; and if you do not go after other gods, to your own harm,
then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors from age to age.
Look, you are trusting in deceptive words that bring no benefit.
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods whom you have not known,
then come and stand before me in this house that is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ so that you may do all these detestable things?
Has this house that is called by my name become, in your eyes, a den of robbers? Even I myself have seen it, declares the LORD.
But go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, but you did not listen, and I called to you, but you did not answer,
I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, as I did to Shiloh.
I will cast you away from before me, as I cast away all your kindred, all the offspring of Ephraim.
As for you, do not pray for this people. Do not lift up for them a cry or a prayer, and do not plead with me, for I will not hear you.
Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, provoking me to anger.
Is it I whom they provoke to anger? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Look, my anger and my wrath are being poured out on this place—on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground. It will burn and not be quenched.
Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
For on the day I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifice.
But this is what I commanded them: ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, so that it may go well with you.’
But they did not listen or incline their ear. They walked in their own counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart; they went backward and not forward.
From the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, rising early and sending them.
Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear. They stiffened their neck; they acted more wickedly than their ancestors.
You will speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you.
Then you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the LORD its God and has not accepted discipline. Faithfulness has perished; it has been cut off from their mouth.
Cut off your consecrated hair and throw it away; raise a lament on the bare heights. For the LORD has rejected and abandoned the generation of his wrath.
For the people of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, defiling it.
They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my heart.
Therefore, look, days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. They will bury in Topheth because there is no other place.
The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the heavens and for the animals of the earth, with no one to frighten them away.
I will bring to an end from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of rejoicing and the sound of gladness, the voice of groom and the voice of bride; for the land will become a wasteland.