The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate
of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear
the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to
worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this
place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple
of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’
“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly
execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the
sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or 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 of
old to your fathers forever.
“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you
steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to
Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then
come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name,
and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these
abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a
den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,
declares the LORD. 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 when I spoke to you
persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not
answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name,
and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to
your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my
sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of
Ephraim.
“As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or
prayer for them, and do not intercede 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 fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen
of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to
provoke me to anger. Is it I whom they provoke? declares the LORD.
Is it not themselves, to their own shame? Therefore thus says the
Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this
place, upon man and beast, upon 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 in the day
that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to
your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and
sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I
will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the
way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did
not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and
the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not
forward. From the day that your fathers came out of the land of
Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the
prophets to them, day after day. Yet they did not listen to me or
incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than
their fathers.
“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not
listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer
you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not
obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept
discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
“‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lamentation on the bare heights,
for the LORD has rejected and forsaken
the generation of his wrath.’
“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares
the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that
is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high
places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to
burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not
command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days
are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called
Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of
Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room
elsewhere. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the
birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will
frighten them away. And I will silence in the cities of Judah and
in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,
for the land shall become a waste.
