Yahweh’s Warning from the Temple Gate

1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2“Stand in the gate of the house of Yahweh, and you shall call out there this word, and you shall say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship Yahweh!’” 3Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4Do not trust in lying words, saying, ‘[†]This is the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh.’ 5For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor, 6if you do not oppress the sojourner, the [†]orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own evil demise, 7then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

8“Behold, you are trusting in lying words to no avail. 9Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear while lying, and burn incense to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, 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? 11Has this house, which is called by My name, become a robbers’ den in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares Yahweh.

12“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of My people Israel. 13And now, because you have done all these works,” declares Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you but you did not answer, 14therefore, I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15I will cast you out of My presence, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.

16“As for you, do not pray for this people and do not lift up a cry of lamentation or prayer for them and do not intercede with Me, for I am not hearing you. 17Are you not seeing what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The [†]children gather wood, and the fathers make the fire burn, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to provoke Me. 19Do they provoke Me?” declares Yahweh. “Is it not themselves they provoke to the shame of their own face?” 20Therefore thus says Lord Yahweh, “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

21Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 22For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23But this is [†]what I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in the entire way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart and [†]went backward and not forward. 25Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My slaves the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. 26Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.

27“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 28You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God or receive discipline; [†]truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.

29Cut off [†]your hair and cast it away,

And lift up a funeral lamentation on the bare heights;

For Yahweh has rejected and abandoned

The generation of His wrath.’

30For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares Yahweh, “they have set their detestable things in the house, which is called by My name, to defile it. 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 did not command, and it did not come upon My heart.

32“Therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when it will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth [†]because there is no other place. 33The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34Then I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a waste place.