11-13 “Well, your God has something to say about this: Watch out! I’m about to visit doom on you, and no one will get out of it. You’re going to cry for help but I won’t listen. Then all the people in Judah and Jerusalem will start praying to the gods you’ve been sacrificing to all these years, but it won’t do a bit of good. You’ve got as many gods as you have villages, Judah! And you’ve got enough altars for sacrifices to that impotent sex god Baal to put one on every street corner in Jerusalem!

14 “And as for you, Jeremiah, I don’t want you praying for this people. Nothing! Not a word of petition. Indeed, I’m not going to listen to a single syllable of their crisis-prayers.”

Promises and Pious Programs

15-16 “What business do the ones I love have figuring out
    how to get off the hook? And right in the house of worship!
Do you think making promises and devising pious programs
    will save you from doom?
Do you think you can get out of this
    by becoming more religious?
A mighty oak tree, majestic and glorious—
    that’s how I once described you.
But it will only take a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning
    to leave you a shattered wreck.

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13 You, Judah, have as many gods(A) as you have towns;(B) and the altars you have set up to burn incense(C) to that shameful(D) god Baal are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

14 “Do not pray(E) for this people or offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen(F) when they call to me in the time of their distress.

15 “What is my beloved doing in my temple
    as she, with many others, works out her evil schemes?
    Can consecrated meat(G) avert your punishment?(H)
When you engage in your wickedness,
    then you rejoice.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 11:15 Or Could consecrated meat avert your punishment? / Then you would rejoice