CHAPTER 7
1 The word that was made of the Lord to Jeremy, and said,
2 Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and preach there this word, and say, All Judah, that enter [in] by these gates for to worship the Lord, hear ye the word of the Lord.
3 The Lord of hosts, God of Israel, saith these things, Make ye good your ways, and your studies, and I shall dwell with you in this place.
4 Do not ye trust in the words of leasing, and say, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord is.
5 For if ye bless your ways, and your studies; if ye do doom betwixt a man and his neighbour;
6 if ye make not false challenge to a comeling, and to a fatherless child, and to a widow; neither shed out innocent blood in this place, and go not after alien gods, into evil to yourselves,
7 I shall dwell with you in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers, from the world and till into the world.
8 Lo! ye trust to you in the words of leasing, that shall not profit to you;
9 to steal, to slay, to do adultery, to swear falsely, to make sacrifice to Baalim, and to go after alien gods, which ye know not.
10 And ye came, and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called to help; and ye said, We be delivered, for we have done all these abominations.
11 Whether therefore this house, wherein my name is called to help before your eyes, is made a den of thieves? I, I am, I saw, saith the Lord.
12 Go ye to my place in Shiloh, where my name dwelled at the beginning, and see ye what things I did to it, for the malice of my people Israel.
13 And now, for ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake to you, and rose early, and I spake, and ye heard not, and I called you, and ye answered not;
14 I shall do to this house, wherein my name is called to help, and in which house ye have trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15 And I shall cast you forth from my face, as I casted forth all your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.
16 Therefore do not thou pray for this people, neither take thou praising and prayer for them; and against-stand thou not me, for I shall not hear thee.
17 Whether thou seest not, what these men do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The sons gather sticks, and the fathers kindle a fire; and women sprinkle together inner fatness, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, to make sacrifice to alien gods, and to stir me to wrathfulness [or to wrath].
19 Whether they stir me to wrathful-ness [or to wrath]? saith the Lord; whether they stir not themselves into [the] shame of their cheer?
20 Therefore the Lord God saith these things, Lo! my strong vengeance and mine indignation is welled together on this place, on men, and on beasts, and on the tree of the country, and on the fruits of [the] earth; and it shall be kindled, and it shall not be quenched.
21 The Lord of hosts, God of Israel, saith these things, Heap ye your burnt sacrifices to your slain sacrifices, and eat ye fleshes.
22 For I spake not with your fathers, and I commanded not to them of the word of burnt sacrifices, and of slain sacrifices, in the day in which I led them out of the land of Egypt.
23 But I commanded this word to them, and I said, Hear ye my voice, and I shall be God to you, and ye shall be a people to me; and go ye in all the way which I commanded to you, that it be well to you.
24 And they heard not, neither bowed down their ear, but they went in their lusts, and in the shrewdness of their evil heart; and they be made behind, and not before,
25 from the day in which their fathers went out of the land of Egypt till to this day. And I sent to you all my servants prophets, and I rose early by the day, and I sent.
26 And they heard not me, neither bowed down their ear; but they made hard their noll, and wrought worse than the fathers of them.
27 And thou shalt speak to them all these words, and they shall not hear thee; and thou shalt call them, and they shall not answer to thee.
28 And thou shalt say to them, This is the folk, that heard not the voice of their Lord God, neither received chastising; faith perished, and is taken away from the mouth of them.
29 Clip thine hair, and cast away, and take thou wailing straightly; for the Lord hath cast away, and hath forsaken the generation of his strong vengeance.
30 For the sons of Judah have done evil before mine eyes, saith the Lord; they have set their offendings in the house, in which my name is called to help, that they should defoul that house;
31 and they builded high things in Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that they should burn their sons and their daughters by fire, which things I commanded not, neither thought in mine heart.
32 Therefore lo! days come, saith the Lord, and it shall no more be said Tophet, and the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaying; and they shall bury in Tophet, for there is no place.
33 And the dead carrion of this people shall be into meat to the birds of heaven, and to the beasts of earth; and none there shall be that shall drive away.
34 And I shall make to cease the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, and the voice of [the] spouse, and the voice of [the] spousess from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall be in desolation.