The Anselm Project

Chapter 7

¹ The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: ² Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD, call out this word there, and say: "Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come in these gates to bow down to the LORD." ³ This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Make your ways and your deeds good, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in lying words to yourselves, saying, "The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD they are!" ⁵ For if you make good your ways and your deeds, you will make good; if you do justice between a man and his companion, you will do. ⁶ You shall not oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow, and you shall not shed innocent blood in this place, and you shall not go after other gods, to harm yourselves. ⁷ And I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from eternity to eternity. ⁸ Behold, you trust in lying words to no profit. ⁹ The thief, the murderer, and the adulterer, who swear falsely and make offerings to Baal and go after other gods whom you have not known. ¹⁰ And you come and stand before me in this house on which my name is called and say, "We have been delivered!"—in order to do all these abominations. ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by my name in your eyes, become a cave of bandits? Behold, I have seen it, says the LORD. ¹² For go now to my place which is at Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell there formerly, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. ¹³ And now, because you have done all these deeds—oracle of the LORD—and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, but you did not hear or obey, and I called you but you did not answer. ¹⁴ And I will do to the house which my name is called upon, which you trust in, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵ And I will cast you away from before my face, just as I cast away all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim. ¹⁶ As for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing 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 dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods in order to provoke me. ¹⁹ Am I the one they are provoking to anger? —utterance of the LORD. Is it not yourselves, for the shame of your faces? ²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath are poured out on this place, on humanity and on beast and on tree of the field and on fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched. ²¹ Thus says the LORD of hosts, God of Israel: "Your burnt offerings—add them to your sacrifices and eat flesh." ²² For I did not speak to your fathers and did not command them on the day I brought them out from the land of Egypt concerning matters of burnt offering and sacrifice. ²³ for only this word I commanded them, saying, "Hear my voice, and I will be your God and you will be my people, and you will walk in all the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you." ²⁴ And they did not hear and they did not incline their ear, and they walked in the counsels of the stubbornness of their heart, the evil, and they were backward and not forward. ²⁵ From the day that your fathers went out from the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending. ²⁶ And they did not listen to me, and they did not incline their ear, and they stiffened their neck; they did evil more than their fathers. ²⁷ You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸ And you shall say to them, "This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God and did not accept discipline. Faithfulness has perished and has been cut off from their mouth." ²⁹ Shear off your cultic turban and cast it away, and bear a lament over your lips, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned the generation of his wrath.