Jeremiah Preaches in the Temple

^1-3The Lord sent me to the gate of the Temple where the people of Judah went in to worship. He told me to stand there and announce what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had to say to them: “Change the way you are living and the things you are doing, and I will let you go on living here.

⁴Stop believing those deceitful words, ‘We are safe! This is the Lord's Temple, this is the Lord's Temple, this is the Lord's Temple!’

⁵“Change the way you are living and stop doing the things you are doing. Be fair in your treatment of one another.

⁶Stop taking advantage of aliens, orphans, and widows. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop worshiping other gods, for that will destroy you.

⁷If you change, I will let you go on living here in the land which I gave your ancestors as a permanent possession.

⁸“Look, you put your trust in deceitful words.

⁹You steal, murder, commit adultery, tell lies under oath, offer sacrifices to Baal, and worship gods that you had not known before.

¹⁰You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, ‘We are safe!’

¹¹Do you think that my Temple is a hiding place for robbers? I have seen what you are doing.

¹²Go to Shiloh, the first place where I chose to be worshiped, and see what I did to it because of the sins of my people Israel.

¹³You have committed all these sins, and even though I spoke to you over and over again, you refused to listen. You would not answer when I called you.

¹⁴And so, what I did to Shiloh I will do to this Temple of mine, in which you trust. Here in this place that I gave to your ancestors and you, I will do the same thing that I did to Shiloh.

¹⁵I will drive you out of my sight as I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

The People's Disobedience

¹⁶The Lord said, “Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not cry or pray on their behalf; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you.

¹⁷Don't you see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The children gather firewood, the men build fires, and the women mix dough to bake cakes for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They also pour out offerings of wine to other gods, in order to hurt me.

¹⁹But am I really the one they are hurting? No, they are hurting themselves and bringing shame on themselves.

²⁰And so I, the Sovereign Lord, will pour out my fierce anger on this Temple. I will pour it out on people and animals alike, and even on the trees and the crops. My anger will be like a fire that no one can put out.

²¹“My people, some sacrifices you burn completely on the altar, and some you are permitted to eat. But what I, the Lord, say is that you might as well eat them all.

²²I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt.

²³But I did command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people. And I told them to live the way I had commanded them, so that things would go well for them.

²⁴But they did not obey or pay any attention. Instead, they did whatever their stubborn and evil hearts told them to do, and they became worse instead of better.

²⁵From the day that your ancestors came out of Egypt until this very day I have kept on sending to you my servants, the prophets.

²⁶Yet no one listened or paid any attention. Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your ancestors.

²⁷“So, Jeremiah, you will speak all these words to my people, but they will not listen to you; you will call them, but they will not answer.

²⁸You will tell them that their nation does not obey me, the Lord their God, or learn from their punishment. Faithfulness is dead. No longer is it even talked about.

Sinful Deeds in Hinnom Valley

²⁹“Mourn, people of Jerusalem; cut off your hair and throw it away. Sing a funeral song on the hilltops, because I, the Lord, am angry and have rejected my people.

³⁰“The people of Judah have done an evil thing. They have placed their idols, which I hate, in my Temple and have defiled it.

³¹In Hinnom Valley they have built an altar called Topheth, so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters in the fire. I did not command them to do this—it did not even enter my mind.

³²And so, the time will come when it will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley, but Slaughter Valley. They will bury people there because there will be nowhere else to bury them.

³³The corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them off.

³⁴The land will become a desert. In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the happy sounds of wedding feasts.

God's Blessing on Israel

¹The Lord said, “Mortal man, speak to the mountains of Israel and tell them to listen to the message which I,

²the Sovereign Lord, have for them: Israel's enemies gloated and said, ‘Now those ancient hills are ours!’

³“Prophesy, then, and announce what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying. When the neighboring nations captured and plundered the mountains of Israel, everyone made fun of Israel.

⁴So now listen to what I, the Sovereign Lord, say to you mountains and hills, to you brooks and valleys, to you places that were left in ruins, and to you deserted cities which were plundered and mocked by all the surrounding nations.

⁵“I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken out in the heat of my anger against the surrounding nations, and especially against Edom. With glee and contempt they captured my land and took possession of its pastures.

⁶“So prophesy to the land of Israel; tell the mountains, hills, brooks, and valleys what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying in jealous anger because of the way the nations have insulted and humiliated them.

⁷I, the Sovereign Lord, solemnly promise that the surrounding nations will be humiliated.

⁸But on the mountains of Israel the trees will again grow leaves and bear fruit for you, my people Israel. You are going to come home soon.

⁹I am on your side, and I will make sure that your land is plowed again and crops are planted on it.

¹⁰I will make your population grow. You will live in the cities and rebuild everything that was left in ruins.

¹¹I will make people and cattle increase in number. There will be more of you than ever before, and you will have many children. I will let you live there as you used to live, and I will make you more prosperous than ever. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

¹²I will bring you, my people Israel, back to live again in the land. It will be your own land, and it will never again let your children starve.

¹³“I, the Sovereign Lord, say: It is true that people say that the land eats people and that it robs the nation of its children.

¹⁴But from now on it will no longer eat people and rob you of your children. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

¹⁵The land will no longer have to listen to the nations making fun of it or see the peoples sneer at it. The land will no longer rob the nation of its children. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

Israel's New Life

¹⁶The Lord spoke to me.

¹⁷“Mortal man,” he said, “when the Israelites were living in their land, they defiled it by the way they lived and acted. I regarded their behavior as being as ritually unclean as a woman is during her monthly period.

¹⁸I let them feel the force of my anger because of the murders they had committed in the land and because of the idols by which they had defiled it.

¹⁹I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries.

²⁰Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.’

²¹That made me concerned for my holy name, since the Israelites brought disgrace on it everywhere they went.

²²“Now then, give the Israelites the message that I, the Sovereign Lord, have for them: What I am going to do is not for the sake of you Israelites, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have disgraced in every country where you have gone.

²³When I demonstrate to the nations the holiness of my great name—the name you disgraced among them—then they will know that I am the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. I will use you to show the nations that I am holy.

²⁴I will take you from every nation and country and bring you back to your own land.

²⁵I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you.

²⁶I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart.

²⁷I will put my spirit in you and will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you.

²⁸Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors. You will be my people, and I will be your God.

²⁹I will save you from everything that defiles you. I will command the grain to be plentiful, so that you will not have any more famines.

³⁰I will increase the yield of your fruit trees and your fields, so that there will be no more famines to disgrace you among the nations.

³¹You will remember your evil conduct and the wrongs that you committed, and you will be disgusted with yourselves because of your sins and your iniquities.

³²Israel, I want you to know that I am not doing all this for your sake. I want you to feel the shame and disgrace of what you are doing. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

³³The Sovereign Lord says, “When I make you clean from all your sins, I will let you live in your cities again and let you rebuild the ruins.

³⁴Everyone who used to walk by your fields saw how overgrown and wild they were, but I will let you farm them again.

³⁵Everyone will talk about how this land, which was once a wilderness, has become like the Garden of Eden, and how the cities which were torn down, looted, and left in ruins, are now inhabited and fortified.

³⁶Then the neighboring nations that have survived will know that I, the Lord, rebuild ruined cities and replant waste fields. I, the Lord, have promised that I would do this—and I will.”

³⁷The Sovereign Lord says, “I will once again let the Israelites ask me for help, and I will let them increase in numbers like a flock of sheep.

³⁸The cities that are now in ruins will then be as full of people as Jerusalem was once full of the sheep which were offered as sacrifices at a festival. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

²⁹If you stay calm, you are wise, but if you have a hot temper, you only show how stupid you are.

³⁰Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but jealousy is like a cancer.

³¹If you oppress poor people, you insult the God who made them; but kindness shown to the poor is an act of worship.

³²Wicked people bring about their own downfall by their evil deeds, but good people are protected by their integrity.