Beginning

7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

² Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.

³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

⁴ Trust not in the lying words [of the false prophets who maintain that God will protect Jerusalem because His temple is there], saying, This is 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 doings, if you thoroughly and truly execute justice between every man and his neighbor,

⁶ If you do not oppress the transient and the alien, the fatherless, and the widow or shed innocent blood [by oppression and by judicial murders] in [Jerusalem] or go after other gods to your own hurt,

⁷ Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers to dwell in forever.

⁸ Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot benefit [so that you do not profit].

⁹ Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,

¹⁰ And [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My ^[a]Name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free!—only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations?

¹¹ Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes [a place of retreat for you between acts of violence]? Behold, I Myself have seen it, says the Lord.

¹² But go now to My place which was in Shiloh [in Ephraim], where I set My Name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel.^(A)

¹³ And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and [because] when I spoke to you persistently [even rising up early and speaking], you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,

¹⁴ Therefore will I do to this house (the temple), which is called by My Name and in which you trust, to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

¹⁵ And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole posterity of Ephraim.

¹⁶ Therefore do not pray for this people [of Judah] or lift up a cry or entreaty for them or make intercession to Me, for I will not listen to or hear you.

¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes for the ^[b]queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger!

¹⁹ Am I the One Whom they provoke to anger? says the Lord. Is it not themselves [whom they provoke], to their own confusion and vexation and to their own shame?

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

²¹ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh [if you will. It will avail you nothing].

²² For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.

²³ But this thing I did command them: Listen to and obey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people; and walk in the whole way that I command you, that it may be well with you.

²⁴ But they would not listen to and obey Me or bend their ear [to Me], but followed the counsels and the stubborn promptings of their own evil hearts and minds, and they turned their backs and went in reverse instead of forward.

²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them daily, early and late.

²⁶ Yet the people would not listen to and obey Me or bend their ears [to Me], but stiffened their necks and behaved worse than their fathers.

²⁷ Speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to and obey you; also call to them, but they will not answer you.

²⁸ Yet you shall say to them, This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God or receive instruction and correction and warning; truth and faithfulness have perished and have completely vanished from their mouths.

²⁹ Cut off your hair [your crown, O Jerusalem] and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.

³⁰ For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations (extremely disgusting and shamefully vile things) in the house which is called by My Name to defile it.

³¹ And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [in honor of Molech, the fire god]—which I did not command, nor did it come into My mind or heart.^(B)

³² Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it shall no more be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], but the Valley of Slaughter, for [in bloody warfare] they will bury in Topheth till there is no more room and no place else to bury.^(C)

³³ And the dead bodies of this people will be meat for the fowls of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.

³⁴ Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.

8 At that time, says the Lord, [the Babylonian army will break open the sepulchers, and] they shall bring out the ^[c]bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves.

² And they will [carelessly] scatter [the corpses] before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which [the dead] have loved and which they have served and after which they have walked and which they have sought, inquired of, and required and which they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered, or be buried; they shall be like ^[d]dung upon the face of the earth.

³ And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of those who remain of this evil family (nation), who remain in all the places to which I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ Moreover, you [Jeremiah] shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: Shall men fall and not rise up again? Shall one turn away [from God] and not repent and return [to Him]?

⁵ Why then is this people of Jerusalem turned away with a perpetual turning away [from Me]? They hold fast to ^[e]deceit (idolatry); they refuse to repent and return [to God].

⁶ I have listened and heard, but they have not spoken aright; no man repents of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turns to his [individual] course, as the horse rushes like a torrent into battle.

⁷ [Even the migratory birds are punctual to their seasons.] Yes, the stork [excelling in the great height of her flight] in the heavens knows her appointed times [of migration], and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their return. But My people do not know the law of the Lord [which the lower animals instinctively recognize in so far as it applies to them].

⁸ How can you say, We are wise, and we have the written law of the Lord [and are learned in its language and teachings]? Behold, the truth is, the lying pen of the scribes has made of the law a falsehood (a mere code of ceremonial observances).^(D)

⁹ The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken [captive]. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom and broad, full intelligence is in them?

¹⁰ Therefore will I give their wives to others and their fields to those who gain possession of them; for everyone, from the least even to the greatest, is given to covetousness (is greedy for unjust gain); from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

¹¹ For they have healed the wound of the daughter of My people only lightly and slightingly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

¹² They are brought to shame because they have committed abominations (extremely disgusting and shamefully vile things). And yet they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time of their punishment they shall be overthrown, says the Lord.^(E)

¹³ I will gather and sweep them away, utterly consuming them, says the Lord. [I will find] no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and even the leaf is withered; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them [for I have appointed to them those who shall pass over them].^(F)

¹⁴ [Then say the people to each other] Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities and be silent or perish there! For the Lord our God has decreed our ruin and given us bitter and poisonous water to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵ We looked for peace and completeness, but no good came, and for a time of healing, but behold, dismay, trouble, and terror!

¹⁶ The snorting of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] horses is heard from Dan [on the northern border of Palestine]. At the sound of the neighing of his strong war-horses the whole land quakes; for they come and devour the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell in it.

¹⁷ For behold, I am sending among you serpents, adders which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the Lord.

¹⁸ Oh, that I [Jeremiah] could comfort myself against sorrow, [for my grief is beyond healing], my heart is sick and faint within me!

¹⁹ Behold [says the prophet, listen to the voice of] the cry of the daughter of my people [for help] because of those who dwell in a far country: Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King in her? [But the Lord answers] Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images and with foreign idols?

²⁰ The harvest is past, the summer has ended and the gathering of fruit is over, yet we are not saved! [comes again the voice of the people.]

²¹ For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I [Jeremiah] hurt; I go around mourning; dismay has taken hold on me.

²² Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people restored? [Because Zion no longer enjoyed the presence of the Great Physician!]^(G)

9 Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a reservoir of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

² Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers [rendering worship to idols instead of to the Lord, Who has espoused the people to Himself]; they are a gang of treacherous men [faithless even to each other].

³ And they bend their tongue, [which is] their bow for the lies [they shoot]. And not according to faithfulness do they rule and become strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know and understand and acknowledge Me, says the Lord.

⁴ Let everyone beware of his neighbor and put no trust in any brother. For every brother is an utter and complete supplanter (one who takes by the heel and trips up, a deceiver, a Jacob), and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.^(H)

⁵ And they deceive and mock every one his neighbor and do not speak the truth. They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity.

⁶ Your habitation is in the midst of deceit [oppression upon oppression and deceit upon deceit]; through deceit they refuse to know and understand Me, says the Lord.

⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will melt them [by the process of affliction to remove the dross] and test them, for how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?

⁸ Their tongue is a murderous arrow; it speaks deceitfully; one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lays snares and waits in ambush for him.

⁹ Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord. Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

¹⁰ For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing and for the pastures of the wilderness a lament, because they are burned up and desolated, so that no one passes through [them]; neither can men hear [any longer] the lowing of cattle. Both the fowls of the air and the beasts have fled, they are gone!

¹¹ I will make Jerusalem heaps [of ruins], a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

¹² Who is the wise man who may understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through it?

¹³ And the Lord says, Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice or walked in accordance with it

¹⁴ But have walked stubbornly after their own hearts and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,

¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink.

¹⁶ I will scatter them also among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword among them and after them until I have consumed them.

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come.

¹⁸ Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us and for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.

¹⁹ For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] out of Zion: How we are plundered and ruined! We are greatly confounded and utterly put to shame, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings [our dwellings that have cast us out].

²⁰ Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge.

²¹ For death has come up into our windows; it has entered into our palaces, cutting off the children from outdoors and the young men from the streets.

²² Speak, Thus says the Lord: The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung on the open field and like sheaves [of grain] behind the reaper, and none shall gather them.^(I)

²³ Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise and skillful person glory and boast in his wisdom and skill; let not the mighty and powerful person glory and boast in his strength and power; let not the person who is rich [in physical gratification and earthly wealth] glory and boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] riches;

²⁴ But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me [personally and practically, directly discerning and recognizing My character], that I am the Lord, Who practices loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.^(J)

²⁵ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all who though circumcised [outwardly, in the flesh] are still uncircumcised [in corresponding inward purity]—^(K)

²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab [all of whom are related except Egypt], and all who live in the desert and who clip off the corners of their hair and beards; for all these nations are uncircumcised [in heart], and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.