1 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2 Stand in
the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the
word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship
Yahweh. 3 Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways
and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Don’t
you trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, the temple of
Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these. 5 For if you thoroughly
amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice
between a man and his neighbor; 6 if you don’t oppress the foreigner,
the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place,
neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: 7 then will I cause you to
dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old
even forevermore. 8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t
profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you
have not known, 10 and 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? 11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den
of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.
12 But go you 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. 13 Now, because you have done all these works, says
Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t
hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer: 14 therefore will I 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. 15 I
will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the
whole seed of Ephraim. 16 Therefore don’t you pray for this people,
neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me;
for I will not hear you. 17 Don’t you see what they do in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The 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. 19 Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh;
do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own
faces? 20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my
wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the
trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and
shall not be quenched. 21 Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel:
Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat you flesh.
22 For I didn’t speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or
sacrifices: 23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my
voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk
you in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
24 But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their
own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and
went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came
forth 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: 26 yet they
didn’t listen to me, nor inclined 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. 28 You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not
listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is
perished, and is cut off from their mouth. 29 Cut off your hair,
Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare
heights; for Yahweh 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 Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by
my name, to defile it. 31 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 didn’t command, neither came it into my mind.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be
called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of
Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to
bury. 33 The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of
the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
34 Then will I 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 shall become a
waste.
World English Bible - Public Domain |
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