The Preacher's Bible

The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, ²“Stand in the gate of Jehovah’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Jehovah’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Jehovah.’”

³Jehovah of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. ⁴Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Jehovah’s temple, Jehovah’s temple, Jehovah’s temple, are these.’ ⁵For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; ⁶if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt, ⁷then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. ⁸Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. ⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations? ¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says Jehovah.

¹²“But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³Now, because you have done all these works,” says Jehovah, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; ¹⁴therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring of Ephraim.

¹⁶“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. ¹⁹Do they provoke me to anger?” says Jehovah. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

²⁰Therefore the Lord Jehovah says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

²¹Jehovah of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. ²²For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; ²³but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. ²⁵Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ²⁶Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Jehovah their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ ²⁹Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Jehovah has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

³⁰“For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says Jehovah. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. ³¹They 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 didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²Therefore behold, the days come”, says Jehovah, “that 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 until there is no place to bury. ³³The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. ³⁴Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from 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 will become a waste.”