False Trust in the Temple

7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ² Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and proclaim there this word:

Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter at these gates to worship the Lord. ³ Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in lying words, saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” ⁵ For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your deeds, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor, ⁶ if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your harm, ⁷ then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. ⁸ Indeed, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.

⁹ Shall you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, ¹⁰ and come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, “We are delivered,” so that you may do all these abominations? ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Certainly, even I have seen it, says the Lord.

¹² But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. ¹³ And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer, ¹⁴ therefore I will do to this 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 have done 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 As for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry nor prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷ Do you not 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 their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. ¹⁹ Do they provoke Me to anger? says the Lord. Do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?

²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord God: My anger and My fury will be poured out upon this place, upon man and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹ Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. ²² For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded 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, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.” ²⁴ But they did not listen, nor incline their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. ²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ²⁶ Yet they did not listen to Me, nor incline their ear, but hardened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷ Therefore you will speak all these words to them. But they will not listen to you. You will also call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸ You shall say to them: This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God, nor receive correction. Truth has perished, and has been cut off from their mouth.

²⁹ Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.

³⁰ For the sons of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. ³¹ They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My heart. ³² Therefore, truly the days are coming, says the Lord, that it will no more be called Topheth, nor the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. ³³ The corpses of this people shall be food for the fowl of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. ³⁴ Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of laughter and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become desolate.