Jeremiah 7
2 Hear ye the word of the Lord, all
Judea. 3 Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, Correct your ways and your devices, and I will cause you to dwell in
this place. 4 Trust not in yourselves
with lying words, for they shall not profit you at all, saying, It is the
temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
5 For if ye thoroughly correct your
ways and your practices, and do indeed execute judgment between a man and his
neighbour; 6 and oppress not the
stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this
place, and go not after strange gods to your hurt:
7 then will I cause you to dwell in
this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers of old and for ever.
8 But whereas ye have trusted in lying
words, whereby ye shall not be profited;
9 and ye murder, and commit adultery,
and steal, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and are gone after
strange gods whom ye know not, 10 so
that it is evil with you; yet have ye come, and stood before me in the house,
whereon my name is called, and ye have said, We have refrained from doing all
these abominations. 11 Is my house,
whereon my name is called, a den of robbers in your eyes? And, behold, I have
seen it, saith the Lord.
12 For go ye to my place which is in
Selo, where I caused my name to dwell before, and see what I did to it because
of the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 And now, because ye have done all
these deeds, and I spoke to you, but ye hearkened not to me; and I called you,
but ye answered not; 14 therefore I
also will do to the house whereon my name is called, wherein ye trust, and to
the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Selo.
15 And I will cast you out of my
sight, as I cast away your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.
16 Therefore pray not thou for this
people, and intercede not for them to be pitied, yea, pray not, and approach
me not for them: for I will not hearken unto thee.
17 Seest thou not what they do in the
cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 Their children gather wood, and
their fathers kindle a fire, and their women knead dough, to make cakes to the
host of heaven; and they have poured out drink-offerings to strange gods, that
they might provoke me to anger. 19 Do
they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not
provoke themselves, that their faces may be ashamed?
20 Therefore thus saith the Lord;
Behold, my anger and wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and upon the
men, and upon the cattle, and upon every tree of their field, and upon the
fruits of the land; and it shall burn, and not be quenched.
21 Thus saith the Lord, Gather your
whole-burnt-offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh.
22 For I spoke not to your fathers,
and commanded them not in the day wherein I brought them up out of the land of
Egypt, concerning whole-burnt-offerings and sacrifice:
23 but I commanded them this thing,
saying, Hear ye my voice, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a
people: and walk ye in all my ways, which I shall command you, that it may be
well with you. 24 But they hearkened
not to me, and their ear gave no heed, but they walked in the imaginations of
their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward;
25 from the day that their fathers
went forth out of the land of Egypt, even until this day. And I sent to you
all my servants, the prophets, by day and early in the morning: yea, I sent
them, 26 but
they hearkened not to me, and their ear gave no heed; and they made their neck
harder than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt speak this
word to them; 28 This is the nation
which has not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, nor received correction:
truth has failed from their mouth.
29 Cut off thine hair, and cast it
away, and take up a lamentation on thy lips; for the Lord has reprobated and
rejected the generation that does these things.
30 For the children of Juda have
wrought evil before me, saith the Lord; they have set their abominations in
the house on which my name is called, to defile it.
31 And they have built the altar of
Tapheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and
their daughters with fire; which I did not command them
to do, neither did I design it in my heart.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Tapheth, and the
valley of the son of Ennom, but, The valley of the slain; and they shall bury
in Tapheth, for want of room. 33 And
the dead bodies of this people shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and
to the wild beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to drive
them away.
34 And I will destroy out of the
cities of Juda, and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of them that make
merry, and the voice of them that rejoice, the voice of the bridegroom, and
the voice of the bride; for the whole land shall become a desolation.