Jeremiah 7:21-34

English Standard Version

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(A)“Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them ^(B)concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them: ^(C)‘Obey my voice, and ^(D)I will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^(E)And walk in all the way that I command you, ^(F)that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴^(G)But they did not obey or incline their ear, ^(H)but walked in their own counsels and ^(I)the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and ^(J)went backward and not forward. ²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, ^(K)I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. ²⁶^(L)Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, ^(M)but stiffened their neck. ^(N)They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷^(O)“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. ^(P)You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; ^(Q)truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

²⁹^(R)“‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lamentation on ^(S)the bare heights,
for the Lord has rejected and forsaken
the generation of his wrath.’

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set ^(T)their detestable things in the house ^(U)that is called by my name, to ^(V)defile it. ³¹And they have built the high places of ^(W)Topheth, which is in ^(X)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^(Y)to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, ^(Z)which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²^(AA)Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called ^(AB)Topheth, or ^(AC)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; ^(AD)for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. ³³^(AE)And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, ^(AF)and none will frighten them away. ³⁴^(AG)And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, ^(AH)for the land shall become a waste.