The Temple Cannot Shelter a People Who Refuse the Lord’s Ways

Jeremiah 7

7:1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

7:2“Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear the LORD’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.’”

7:3The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

7:4Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘The LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, are these.’

7:5For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

7:6if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt,

7:7then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more.

7:8Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit.

7:9Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,

7:10then 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?

7:11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says the LORD.

7:12“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.

7:13Now, because you have done all these works,” says the LORD, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer;

7:14therefore 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.

7:15I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring of Ephraim.

7:16“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.

7:17Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

7:18The 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.

7:19Do they provoke me to anger?” says the LORD. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

7:20Therefore the Lord GOD says: “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.”

7:21The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat.

7:22For 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;

7:23but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

7:24But 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.

7:25Since 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.

7:26Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.

7:27“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.

7:28You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the LORD their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’

7:29Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

7:30“For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says the LORD. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

7:31They 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.

7:32Therefore behold, the days come”, says the LORD, “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.

7:33The 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.

7:34Then 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.”

Jeremiah 8

8:1“At that time,” says the LORD, “they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.

8:2They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth.

8:3Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says the LORD of Armies.

8:4“Moreover you shall tell them, ‘The LORD says: “‘Do men fall, and not rise up again? Does one turn away, and not return?

8:5Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return.

8:6I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.

8:7Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know the LORD’s law.

8:8“‘How do you say, “We are wise, and the LORD’s law is with us”? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie.

8:9The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected the LORD’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?

8:10Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.

8:11They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

8:12Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says the LORD.

8:13“‘I will utterly consume them, says the LORD. No grapes will be on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will fade. The things that I have given them will pass away from them.’”

8:14“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves! Let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s be silent there; for the LORD our God has put us to silence, and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

8:15We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

8:16The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan. The whole land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell therein.”

8:17“For, behold, I will send serpents, adders among you, which will not be charmed; and they will bite you,” says the LORD.

8:18Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

8:19Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t the LORD in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

8:20“The harvest is past. The summer has ended, and we are not saved.”

8:21For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

8:22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Jeremiah 9

9:1Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

9:2Oh 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, an assembly of treacherous men.

9:3“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says the LORD.

9:4“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer.

9:5Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity.

9:6Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

9:7Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

9:8Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

9:9Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?

9:10I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

9:11“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

9:12Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

9:13The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

9:14but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”

9:15Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

9:16I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

9:17The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.

9:18Let 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.

9:19For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

9:20Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.

9:21For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

9:22Speak, “The LORD says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

9:23The LORD says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

9:24But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for I delight in these things,” says the LORD.

9:25“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:

9:26Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

Jeremiah 10

10:1Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, house of Israel!

10:2The LORD says, “Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them.

10:3For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

10:4They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

10:5They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

10:6There is no one like you, LORD. You are great, and your name is great in might.

10:7Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.

10:8But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

10:9There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men.

10:10But the LORD is the true God. He is the living God, and an everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth trembles. The nations aren’t able to withstand his indignation.

10:11“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’”

10:12God has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens.

10:13When he utters his voice, the waters in the heavens roar, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings the wind out of his treasuries.

10:14Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

10:15They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

10:16The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the maker of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance. The LORD of Armies is his name.

10:17Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege.

10:18For the LORD says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.”

10:19Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

10:20My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

10:21For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

10:22The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

10:23LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

10:24LORD, correct me, but gently; not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.

10:25Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.