Chronological

7 ¶ The word that was sent 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 ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

³ Thus hath the LORD of the hosts the God of Israel said, Amend your ways and your doings, 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 are these.

⁵ For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if ye thoroughly do right between a man and his neighbour,

⁶ if ye do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed no innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt,

⁷ then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for ever and ever.

⁸ Behold, ye trust in lying words that cannot profit.

⁹ Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not,

¹⁰ and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are free to do all these abominations?

¹¹ Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, said the LORD.

¹² But go now unto 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 ye have done all these works, said the LORD and I spoke well unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye did not hear; and I called you, but ye did not answer;

¹⁴ therefore I will do unto this house, which is called by my name, in which ye trust, and unto this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

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

¹⁶ ¶ Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

¹⁷ Dost thou not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The sons 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 unto other gods that they may provoke me to anger.

¹⁹ Shall they provoke me to anger? said the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

²⁰ Therefore thus hath the Lord GOD said: Behold, my anger and my fury shall 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 hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said: Add your burnt offerings upon your sacrifices and eat flesh.

²² For I did not speak unto your fathers, nor command 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, Hear my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you.

²⁴ But they did not hearken, nor incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels in the imagination of their evil heart and went backward, and not forward

²⁵ since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day. I have even sent unto you all my slaves, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them;

²⁶ yet they did not hearken unto me, nor incline their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

²⁷ Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt even call unto them; but they will not answer thee.

²⁸ Therefore thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation that did not hear the voice of the LORD their God, nor receive chastisement; the faith is lost and was cut off from their mouth.

²⁹ ¶ Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has cast off and forsaken the nation of his wrath.

³⁰ For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, said the LORD; they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to pollute it.

³¹ And they have built the high places of Tophet, 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 them, neither did it come into my heart.

³² Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no longer be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet, for there shall be no other place.

³³ And the carcasses of this people shall be food for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and there shall be no one to chase them away.

³⁴ Then I will 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 shall be desolate.

8 ¶ At that time, said the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of his princes and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;

² and they shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved and whom they have served and after whom they have walked and whom they have sought and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

³ And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of those that remain of this evil generation, in all the places where I have driven those that remain, said the LORD of the hosts.

⁴ ¶ Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus hath the LORD said: The one who falls, does he never arise? he who turns away, does he never return?

⁵ Why then is this people of Jerusalem rebellious with a perpetual rebellion? They hold fast deceit; they refuse to return.

⁶ I hearkened and heard, but they did not speak aright: there was no man that repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? each one returned to his course as the horse rushes into the battle.

⁷ Even the stork in the heaven knows her appointed time; and the turtle dove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people did not know the judgment of the LORD.

⁸ How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Behold, certainly in vain did he make the pen; the scribes were in vain.

⁹ The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?

¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives unto others and their fields unto those that shall inherit them: for each one from the least even unto the greatest is given to greed; from the prophet even unto the priest every one deals falsely.

¹¹ For they have treated the destruction of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

¹² Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among those that should fall: when I visit them, they shall fall, saith the LORD.

¹³ ¶ I will surely cut them off completely, said the LORD: there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fall; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.

¹⁴ Upon what shall we secure ourselves? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God has put us to silence and given us water of gall to drink because we have sinned against the LORD.

¹⁵ We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!

¹⁶ The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole earth trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those that dwell therein.

¹⁷ For, behold, I send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, said the LORD.

¹⁸ Because of my strong sorrow, my heart is faint in me.

¹⁹ Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people that comes from a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images and with vanities of a strange god?

²⁰ The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

²¹ For the destruction of the daughter of my people I am devastated; I am in darkness; astonishment has taken hold on me.

²² Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then was there no medicine for the daughter of my people?

9 ¶ Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain 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 of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from them! for they are all adulterers, a congregation of rebels.

³ And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies, but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth for they proceed from evil to evil, and they did not recognize me, said the LORD.

⁴ Take heed each one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

⁵ And they will deceive each one his neighbour and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁶ Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

⁷ Therefore thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, Behold, I will melt them and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

⁸ Their tongue is as a sharp arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth but in heart he lays in wait.

⁹ Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁰ Upon the mountains I will lift up weeping and wailing and lamentation upon the habitations of the wilderness because they are burned up, so that no one can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and even the beasts of the earth are fled; they are gone.

¹¹ And I will make Jerusalem heaps and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

¹² ¶ Who is the wise man that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken that he may declare for what cause the land perishes and is burned up like a wilderness that no one passes through?

¹³ And the LORD said, Because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them, and have not heard my voice, neither walked therein,

¹⁴ but have walked after the imagination of their own heart and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them,

¹⁵ Therefore thus hath the LORD of the hosts the God of Israel said: Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them water of gall to drink.

¹⁶ I will scatter them also among Gentiles whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.

¹⁷ Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, Consider ye and call for the mourning women that they may come and send for cunning women that they may come,

¹⁸ and let them make haste and take up a wailing for us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹ For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we destroyed! We are greatly confounded. Why have we forsaken the land? Why have our dwellings cast us out?

²⁰ Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth and teach your daughters wailing and each one her neighbour lamentation.

²¹ For death is come up into our windows and is entered into our palaces to cut off the children from without and the young men from the streets.

²² Speak, Thus hath the LORD said, Even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field and as the handful after the harvestman, and there shall be none to gather them.

²³ ¶ Thus hath the LORD said, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches;

²⁴ but let him that glories glory in this, that he understands me and knows me, that I am the LORD who does mercy, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, said the LORD.

²⁵ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will visit all those who are circumcised with the uncircumcised:

²⁶ Egypt and Judah and Edom and the sons of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all the Gentiles are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.