Beginning
Jeremiah speaks in the Temple
7 The Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: 2 ‘Stand at the gate of the Lord's temple and speak this message. Say, “Listen to the Lord's message, all you people of Judah. You come through this gate to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says: Change the way that you live. Do things that are right. If you change, I will let you continue to live here. 4 People may say, ‘We are safe here! This is the temple of the Lord. It is the temple of the Lord!’ But the people who say that are deceiving you. Do not trust them. 5 You must change the way that you have been living. You must do what is right. Be fair to each other. 6 Do not be cruel to foreigners who are living among you. Do not be cruel to widows, or to children who have no family. You must stop murdering people. You must stop worshipping other gods. If you live like that, it will destroy you. 7 If you change how you live, I will let you live in this place. It is the land that I gave to your ancestors, to be their home for ever.
8 But look at how you live now! You believe in lies that cannot save you. 9 You rob people. You murder people. You have sex with someone else's wife or husband. You tell lies in court when you have promised to tell the truth. You offer sacrifices to the false god, Baal. You serve other gods that you never knew before. 10 You do that and then you come to meet me here, in my own house! You say, ‘We are safe!’ 11 This is my temple! It is not a place where robbers can hide and be safe. Listen to me! I have seen the things that you have done.” That is what the Lord says.
12 “Go to Shiloh, and see what I did there. It was the first place that I chose where people would worship me. But I destroyed it because of the wicked things that my people, the Israelites, did. 13 You have done the same wicked things. I have warned you many times, but you have not listened to me. I called out to you, but you refused to answer.” That is what the Lord says.
14 “So now I will destroy this temple that I chose to be my home. I gave this temple to you and to your ancestors. You think that it will keep you safe. But I will destroy it, as I destroyed Shiloh. 15 I will send you far away from me. I already did that to the other Israelites, the people of Ephraim's tribe.” [a]
16 Jeremiah, you must not pray for this people. Do not ask me to help them. If you ask me to save them, I will not listen to you. 17 You can see what they are doing in Jerusalem and in all the towns of Judah. 18 The children fetch wood and their fathers use it to light a fire. The women prepare flour to cook cakes. Then they offer them to the “Queen of Heaven”. And they offer gifts of drink to other false gods. They do that to make me angry. 19 But they are not hurting me. They are hurting themselves, and they will be ashamed.’ That is what the Lord says.
20 The Lord God says, ‘Because I am so angry, I will punish this land very much. It will be like a fire that nobody can stop. My punishment will destroy people, animals, trees and crops.’
21 The Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says this to Judah's people: ‘You should eat the meat from your burnt offerings, as well as your other sacrifices. You are not offering them to me![b] 22 Remember this: I brought your ancestors safely out of Egypt. Then I gave them my commands. Those commands were not only about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 I also told them, “Obey me. Then I will be your God, and you will be my people. You must live in the way that I have commanded you. If you do that, you will enjoy your lives.” 24 But your ancestors refused to obey me. They did anything that their wicked thoughts made them want to do. They refused to return to me. Instead, they went further away. 25 Since the time that your ancestors left Egypt, I have sent my servants, the prophets to speak to you. I have continued to do that many times, even until now. 26 But my people did not listen to me. They have refused to obey me. They have continued to do evil things, even worse than their ancestors did.’
27 The Lord said to me, ‘Jeremiah, you must speak my message to them. But they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not answer. 28 So you must tell them, “The people of this nation have not obeyed the Lord their God. When I warned them, they have not agreed to change. Nobody does what is right. Nobody even speaks about what is true. 29 Now show that you are upset. Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go to the tops of the hills and sing sad songs about death. Realize that today's people have made the Lord very angry. So he has decided to turn away from them and leave them.” ’
The valley of death
30 The Lord says, ‘The people of Judah have done things that I see are evil. They have put their disgusting idols in my temple. That is the place that I chose to be my special home, and they have made it unclean. 31 They have built altars in Topheth, in Ben-Hinnom Valley. On those altars, they light fires to burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices. I never commanded them to do that. I never even thought about it. 32 So listen to me! The time will soon come when people no longer call those places Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley. Instead, they will call it Death Valley. They will bury lots of dead people there. There will be no space left to bury any more people! 33 Then the bodies of dead people will lie on the ground. Birds and animals will come and eat them. There will be nobody to chase them away. 34 Jerusalem and all of Judah will become like a desert where nobody lives. There will be no noise of happy people. There will be no happy songs or marriage parties. The whole land will be quiet.’
8 The Lord says, ‘At that time, your enemies will open the graves of your leaders and they will remove their bones.[c] They will remove the bones of Judah's kings and their officers, as well as the priests and prophets. They will also remove the bones of the ordinary people of Jerusalem. 2 They will leave the bones all over the ground, under the sun, the moon and the stars. Those were the gods that my people loved. They served them and they worshipped them. Nobody will take their bones and bury them again. They will lie on the ground, like dung. 3 The people of this wicked nation who are still alive will want to die. I will send them away as prisoners to other countries. They will not want to live in those places. They will all want to die.’ That is what the Lord Almighty says.
Sin brings punishment
4 ‘Jeremiah, tell the people that this is what I, the Lord, say to them:
When people fall down, they get up again.
When people realize that they are on the wrong road,
they turn around.
5 So why have the people of Jerusalem not turned back to me?
They turn away from me all the time.
They believe the lies of false gods,
and they refuse to return to me.
6 I have listened carefully to them,
but they do not say what is right.
They are not sorry for the wicked things that they have done.
None of them say, “I have done something wrong.”
They all continue to do what they want to do.
They are like horses that are running into a battle.
7 Even birds know when it is time for them to move to a different place.
That is true for storks, doves, swallows and cranes.[d]
Birds know when it is time to return,
but my people do not know my laws.
8 You say, “We are wise
because we have the law of the Lord.”
But I tell you, your teachers have changed my laws.
They teach you lies instead.
9 Those wise teachers will be ashamed and upset.
Enemies will catch them as their prisoners.
They have refused to accept the Lord's message.
So they are not really wise.
10 I will give their wives to other men.
Their fields will belong to other men.
They all cheat other people to get what they want.
Important people and ordinary people do that.
Prophets and priests do that.
They love to deceive people.
11 They tell my dear people that their wounds are not bad.
They say to them,
“No problem! You will have peace.”
But there will be no peace for my people.
12 They are not ashamed of the disgusting things that they do.
They do not even know what shame is.
They have forgotten how to be ashamed.
So they will fall to the ground,
as other people have fallen.
When I punish them,
that will be the end of them.’
That is what the Lord says.
13 The Lord says,
‘I will take away the crops from their fields.’
‘No figs or grapes will grow on their trees.[e]
The leaves on their trees will dry up and die.
All the good things that I gave to them will disappear.’
14 The people say:
‘We should not sit here and do nothing.
We must all go together into our strong cities.
If we have to die, we will die there!
The Lord our God has said that we must die.
We have done bad things against him.
He has decided to punish us with death.
He has given us water to drink that has poison in it.
15 We wanted to have peace,
but nothing good has happened to us.
We wanted to rest without trouble,
but instead we are afraid.
16 In the city of Dan, people can already hear
the noise of the enemy's horses.[f]
They are coming to attack our land,
so everyone shakes with fear.
They will destroy the whole land
and everything in it.
They will destroy the cities
and all the people who live in them.’
17 The Lord says,
‘Yes! I am sending an enemy's army to attack you.
They will be like dangerous snakes that have poison.
Nobody can stop them!
They will bite you and kill you.’
18 I said,
‘I am very sad and upset.
I will never get better again.
19 Listen to my dear people!
They are calling out for help everywhere in the land.
They are saying, “Is the Lord still with us in Zion?
Is he still there to rule us as our King?” ’
The Lord replies,
‘They worship images of false gods.
and useless foreign idols.
That has made me very angry.’
20 The people say,
‘We have taken in all our crops from the fields.
The summer has finished.
And still nobody has rescued us.’
21 I am very upset
because my dear people have so much pain.
I weep and I cry, as if a friend had died.
22 Surely there is a medicine in Gilead.
There is a doctor there who can make my dear people better.
But my people are still ill.
Why are they not better?
9 ‘My head should be like a pool of water.
My eyes should be like a river of tears.
Then I would never stop crying
for my dear people who have died in war.
2 I would like to live in a hut in the desert.
Then I could leave my people.
I could forget about them.
They have all turned away from God.
They have not been faithful to him.
They are a crowd of people that nobody can trust.’
The Lord answers Jeremiah
3 The Lord says,
‘The tongues of these people speak lies,
like the bows of soldiers shoot arrows.
They have become powerful in the land,
but they have used lies to do that.
They do more and more evil things,
and they do not respect me.
4 Be careful of your friends.
Do not even trust your brothers!
They will always try to cheat you.
All your friends will speak lies about you.
5 They deceive each other,
and they never tell the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies.
They love to do bad things
and they cannot stop themselves.
6 They hurt and they deceive each other.
They do that more and more.
They refuse to respect me.’
That is what the Lord says.
7 So the Lord Almighty says this:
‘Listen! I will test my people,
like a man uses fire to make metal become pure.
I must punish them like this because they are so wicked.
There is nothing else that I can do!
8 Their tongues are like arrows that have poison.
They hurt people with their lies.
They speak kind words to their neighbours,
but they are looking for a way to cheat them.
9 I must certainly punish them for what they have done.
I will pay back this wicked nation for their sins.’
That is what the Lord says.
Jeremiah is sad
10 ‘I will weep for the mountains.
I will cry for the fields in the wilderness.
There is no grass for the animals to eat.
Nobody travels through those places.
There is no sound of cows and sheep.
The birds and the wild animals have all disappeared.’
11 The Lord replied,
‘I will make Jerusalem a heap of stones.
Only wild animals will live there.
I will destroy the towns of Judah
so that nobody can live in them.’
12 I said,
‘Nobody is wise enough to understand this. The Lord has not told anyone, so that he can explain it to others. Why has our land become like a desert so that nobody travels through it? Does anyone know the answer?’
13 The Lord answered, ‘It is because my people have not accepted the laws that I gave to them. They have not obeyed me. They have not lived in the way that I told them to live. 14 Instead, they have done whatever they wanted to do. They have served the gods of Baal, as their ancestors taught them to do.’ 15 So the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says this: ‘I will punish my people with trouble and pain. I will give them food that is bitter. They will drink water that is poison. 16 I will send them away as prisoners. They will live among foreign nations that they had never heard about. Their ancestors had not heard about them either. I will send enemies to chase after them until I have destroyed them.’
17 The Lord Almighty said this:
‘Think about what is happening!
Call the women who weep at funerals.
Bring those women who know what to do.’
18 ‘Yes, tell them to come quickly
to sing funeral songs for us.[g]
Then tears will pour from our eyes,
and we will not stop weeping.
19 Listen to the people who are crying in Jerusalem!
They say,
“A terrible thing has happened to us!
We are very ashamed!
Our enemies have destroyed our houses.
Now we have to leave our land.” ’
20 ‘Now hear the Lord's message, you women.
Listen to what he says to you.
Teach your daughters how to weep.
Teach each other this funeral song:
21 “Death has come to visit us!
It has come into our strong houses.
Death has taken away our children
who play in the streets.
It has taken away our young men
who meet together in the streets.”
22 The Lord says this:
Dead bodies of people will lie everywhere on the ground.
They will lie there like dung
that a farmer puts on his fields.
They will lie there like crops at harvest time
that nobody has picked up.’
23 The Lord says,
‘Wise people should not be proud of their wisdom.
Powerful people should not be proud of their power.
And rich people should not be proud that they are rich.
24 If they want to be proud about something,
they should be proud that they know me.
They should boast that they understand who I am.
I am the Lord.
I am faithful in my love for my people.
I always do what is right and fair.
It makes me happy when people live in that way too.’
25 The Lord says, ‘Be careful! Very soon I will punish all people who do not respect me. Those people may be circumcised, but if they do not respect me, I will punish them. 26 Those people include the Egyptians, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites and the people of Judah. I will also punish the people who live in the desert and who cut their hair short. Those people are not circumcised to give honour to me. The Israelites are the same. Their bodies are circumcised, but they do not want to obey my covenant with them.’
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