Jeremiah 7

Thomson^{(i) 1} [Omitted] ² Hear a word of the Lord, all ye of Judea! ³ thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: amend your ways and your pursuits: and I will cause you to dwell in this place. ⁴ Trust not in yourselves; in lying words: for you will derive no benefit from them who say, "The temple of the Lord! it is the temple of the Lord!" ⁵ For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your pursuits, and actually execute judgment between man and man: ⁶ and do not oppress the stranger and orphan and widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place, nor go after strange gods to your hurt: ⁷ then will I cause you to dwell in this place; [in the land which I gave to your fathers] from age to age. ⁸ But if you continue to trust in lying words from which you can derive no benefit; ⁹ and commit murder, and adultery and steal and swear to a falsehood, and burn incense to Baal; and when you have gone after strange gods which you did not know; ¹⁰ you, because of your calamities, have then come and stood before me, in the house which is called by my name, and said, "We have been restrained from committing these abominations;" ¹¹ is not this house of mine, which is called by my name, become in your eyes a den of robbers? Now behold I have seen this, saith the Lord. ¹² Go then to my place which was at Selo, where I caused my name to dwell at first; and see what I have done to it, for the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³ Now therefore because you have done all these things: and I have spoken to you and you have not hearkened to me; and I have called you and you have not answered; ¹⁴ I therefore will do to this house which is called by my name, and in which you have placed your confidence; and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers; as I did to Selo. ¹⁵ And I will drive you from my presence, as I have driven out your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim. ¹⁶ And as for thee, pray not thou for this people; nor supplicate for compassion to be shewn them: neither pray nor intercede with me for them; for I will not listen. ¹⁷ Dost thou not see what they are doing in the cities of Juda and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸ Their sons are collecting wood; and their fathers are kindling a fire: and their wives are kneading dough to make cakes for the host of heaven: and they have poured out libations to strange gods, to vex me. Do they vex me? Saith the Lord: ¹⁹ do they not vex themselves; that their faces may be covered with shame? ²⁰ Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold my anger and my fury is poured upon this place and on these men; and on the cattle and on every tree of their field and on all the products of the ground, and it shall burn and shall not be quenched. ²¹ Thus saith the Lord, Collect your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices and eat flesh. ²² Because I did not speak to your fathers nor give them a charge, on the day when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices; ²³ but only gave them this charge saying, "Hearken to my voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people; and walk in all my ways which I command you that it may be well with you." ²⁴ But they hearkened not to me nor inclined their ear; but walked in the devices of their own wicked heart, and went backward and not forward ²⁵ from the day their fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day: though I sent to you all my servants the prophets; daily and early though I sent them, ²⁶ yet they hearkened not to me nor inclined their ears; nay they hardened their necks more than their fathers; ²⁷ therefore thou shalt deliver them this message. ²⁸ "This is the nation which hearkened not to the voice of the Lord, nor received instruction: faithfulness is gone from their mouth: ²⁹ shave thy head and throw away the hair, and take up with thy lips a song of lamentation, for the Lord hath rejected and cast off the generation which hath done these things." ³⁰ Because the children of Juda have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord, have set up their abominations in the house called by my name, to pollute it; ³¹ and have built up the altar of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters with fire; a thing which I never commanded them and which never entered my mind; ³² therefore, behold days are coming saith the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Tophet, and the valley of the son of Ennom, but, "The valley of them who were slain." For they shall bury in Tophet for want of room. ³³ And the carcasses of this people shall be for food for the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to scare them away. ³⁴ And I will cause to cease from the cities of Juda and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness; the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the whole land shall be a desolation."