Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2“Stand at the gate to the house of the Lord, and preach this word there, and say: Listen to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter through these gates to adore the Lord. 3Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your intentions good, and I will live with you in this place. 4Do not choose to trust in lying words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!’ 5For if you direct your ways and your intentions well, if you exercise judgment between a man and his neighbor, 6if you do not act with deceit toward the new arrival, the orphan, and the widow, and if you do not pour out innocent blood in this place, and if you do not walk after strange gods, which is to your own harm, 7then I will live with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers from the beginning and even forever.

8Behold, you trust in false words, which will not benefit you, 9so as to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer libations to Baal, and to go after strange gods, which you do not know. 10And you arrived and stood before me in this house, where my name is invoked, and you said: ‘We have been freed because we carried out all these abominations.’ 11So then, has this house, where my name has been invoked, become a den of robbers in your eyes? It is I, I am, I have seen, says the Lord.

12Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name has lived from the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and because I have spoken to you from your morning rising, and because I was speaking, but you were not listening, and because I have called you, but you have not responded: 14I will do to this house, in which my name is invoked, and in which you have confidence, even to this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I have done to Shiloh. 15And I will cast you away from my face, just as I have cast away all your brothers, the entire offspring of Ephraim.

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

16Therefore, you should not pray for this people, nor take up praise and supplication on their behalf. And you should not stand in opposition to me. For then I will not heed you. 17Have you not seen what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The sons gather the wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the wives spread the grease, so as to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to offer libations to strange gods, and so as to provoke me to anger. 19But are they provoking me to anger, says the Lord? Are they not provoking themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?” 20Therefore, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, my fury and my indignation is kindled against this place, over men and over beasts, and over the trees of the countryside and over the fruits of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.”

21Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your holocausts to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 22For concerning the matter of holocausts and sacrifices, I did not speak with your fathers, and I did not instruct them, in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt. 23But on this matter I did instruct them, saying: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. And walk in the entire way that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you. 24But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, they walked by their own will and in the depravity of their own wicked heart. And so, they went backward, and not forward, 25from the day when their fathers went forth from the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to you, throughout the day, rising at first light and sending them. 26But they have not listened to me, nor have they inclined their ear. Instead, they have stiffened their neck, and they have behaved worse than their fathers did.

27And so, you will speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you. And you will call to them, but they will not respond to you. 28And you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor accepted discipline. Faith has perished and been taken away from their mouth.

29Cut off your hair, and cast it away. And take up a lamentation on high. For the Lord has cast aside and abandoned this generation of his fury.

The Valley of Slaughter

30For the sons of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the Lord. They have stationed their abominations in the house where my name is invoked, so that they may defile it. 31And they have built the exalted places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, so that they may burn their sons and their daughters with fire, something I neither instructed, nor thought in my heart.

32For this reason, behold, the days will arrive, says the Lord, when it will no longer be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but instead the Valley of Slaughter. Yet they will bury in Topheth, because there will be no other place. 33And the corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the wild beasts of the land, and there will be no one to drive them away. 34And from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, I will cause the cessation of the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride. For the land will be in utter desolation.”