Jeremiah 7:21-34

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

²¹ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²² For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³ But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” ²⁴ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backward rather than forward. ²⁵ From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; ²⁶ yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

²⁷ So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸ 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; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

³⁰ For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. ³¹ And they go on building the high place^[b] of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³² Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. ³³ The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. ³⁴ And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste.