Jeremiah 7

2 “Hear the Lord’s word, all Judah.” [a] 3 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Straighten out your ways and your conduct, and I will let you live in this place.” 4 “Do not trust in yourselves with lying words — they will not help you at all — saying, ‘It is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’” 5 “For if you truly straighten out your ways and your conduct, and truly do judgment between a man and his neighbor,” 6 “and do not oppress the newcomer, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not go after foreign gods to your own hurt,”

7 “then I will settle you in this place, in the land that I gave your fathers from of old and forever.” 8 “But you — you have trusted in lying words that will do you no good.” 9 “And you murder and commit adultery and steal and swear by what is wrong and burn incense to Baal and go after foreign gods you do not know —” 10 “all to your own harm. And then you come and stand before me in the house where my name is called, and you say, ‘We have kept ourselves from doing all these detestable things.’” 11 “Is my house, where my name is called, a den of robbers in your eyes? Look — I have seen it, says the Lord.”

12 “Go to my place in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.” 13 “And now, because you have done all these things — I spoke to you and you did not listen to me; I called you and you did not answer —” 14 “I will do to this house where my name is called, the house you trust in, and to the place I gave you and your fathers, just what I did to Shiloh.” 15 “And I will throw you away from my presence, just as I threw away your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.” 16 “And you — do not pray for this people; do not plead for them to be shown mercy; do not make requests; do not approach me on their behalf, because I will not listen.”

17 “Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?” 18 “Their sons gather wood, and their fathers light the fire, and their women knead dough to make cakes for the army of heaven. And they have poured out drink offerings to foreign gods, to provoke me to anger.” 19 “But is it me they are provoking? says the Lord. Is it not themselves, so that their own faces are put to shame?” 20 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: Look, my anger and my wrath are being poured out on this place — on the people, and on the cattle, and on every tree of their field, and on all the produce of the land — and it will burn and not be put out.” 21 “This is what the Lord says: Gather your whole burnt offerings together with your sacrifices, and eat the meat.”

22 “For on the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them about whole burnt offerings and sacrifice.” † † 23 “This is the command I gave them: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Walk in all my ways that I command you, so that it may go well with you.” 24 “But they did not listen to me; their ear paid no attention. They walked in the devisings of their own evil heart, and they went backward, not forward.” 25 “From the day their fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I kept sending you all my slaves the prophets — day after day, from early morning I sent them.” 26 “But they did not listen to me; their ear paid no attention, and they stiffened their neck worse than their fathers did.”

27 “And you will tell them this word:” 28 “This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord and has not accepted discipline; faithfulness has vanished from their mouth.” 29 “Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on your lips, for the Lord has rejected and cast off the generation that does these things.” 30 “For the sons of Judah have done evil before me, says the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house where my name is called, to defile it.” 31 “And they have built the altar of Topheth, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire — something I did not command them, something that never entered my heart.” [b]

32 “Therefore, look, days are coming, says the Lord, when people will no longer say ‘the altar of Topheth’ and ‘the valley of the son of Hinnom,’ but ‘the Valley of the Slain.’ And they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room left.” 33 “This people’s corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and the wild animals, with no one to frighten them away.” 34 “And I will bring to an end, in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, because the whole land will become a desolation.”