Jeremiah 7

Condemnation of False Security Jeremiah 7:8–15

⁸Verse 8. Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. ⁹Verse 9. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰Verse 10. then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered;’ that you may do all these abominations? ¹¹Verse 11. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says Yahweh. ¹²Verse 12. “But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

¹³Verse 13. Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; ¹⁴Verse 14. therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵Verse 15. I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring of Ephraim.

Rejection of Intercession Jeremiah 7:16–28

¹⁶Verse 16. “Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Verse 17. Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸Verse 18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. ¹⁹Verse 19. Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

²⁰Verse 20. Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.” ²¹Verse 21. Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. ²²Verse 22. For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; ²³Verse 23. but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

²⁴Verse 24. But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. ²⁵Verse 25. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ²⁶Verse 26. Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers. ²⁷Verse 27. “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you.

²⁸Verse 28. You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’

The Consequences of Evil Jeremiah 7:29–34

²⁹Verse 29. Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. ³⁰Verse 30. “For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says Yahweh. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. ³¹Verse 31. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind.

³²Verse 32. Therefore behold, the days come”, says Yahweh, “that 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 place to bury. ³³Verse 33. The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. ³⁴Verse 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 will become a waste.”