7:2 “Stand at the gate of the house of Adonai and proclaim this word: ‘Listen to the word of Adonai, all you from Y’hudah who enter these gates to worship Adonai!
7:3 Here is what Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Isra’el, says: “Improve your ways and actions, and I will let you stay in this place.
7:4 Don’t rely on that deceitful slogan, ‘The temple of Adonai, the temple of Adonai — these [buildings] are the temple of Adonai.’
7:5 No, but if you really improve your ways and actions; if you really administer justice between people;
7:6 if you stop oppressing foreigners, orphans and widows; if you stop shedding innocent blood in this place; and if you stop following other gods, to your own harm;
7:7 then I will let you stay in this place, in the land I gave to your ancestors forever and ever.
7:8 Look! You are relying on deceitful words that can’t do you any good.
7:9 First you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, offer to Ba‘al and go after other gods that you haven’t known.
7:10 Then you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, ‘We are saved’ — so that you can go on doing these abominations!
7:11 Do you regard this house, which bears my name, as a cave for bandits? I can see for myself what’s going on,” says Adonai.
7:12 “Go to the place in Shiloh that used to be mine, that used to bear my name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Isra’el.
7:13 I spoke to you again and again, but you wouldn’t listen. I called you, but you wouldn’t answer. Now,” says Adonai, “because you have done all these things,
7:14 I will do to the house that bears my name, on which you rely, and to the place I gave you and your ancestors, what I did to Shiloh;
7:15 and I will drive you out of my presence, just as I drove out all your kinsmen, all the descendants of Efrayim.”’
7:16 “So you, [Yirmeyahu,] don’t pray for this people! Don’t cry, pray or intercede on their behalf with me; because I won’t listen to you.
7:17 Don’t you see what they are doing in the cities of Y’hudah and in the streets of Yerushalayim?
7:18 The children gather the wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and, just to provoke me, they pour out drink offerings to other gods!
7:19 Are they really provoking me,” asks Adonai, “or are they provoking themselves, to their own ruin?”
7:20 Therefore, here is what Adonai Elohim says: “My anger and fury will be poured out on this place, on men, animals, trees in the fields and produce growing from the ground; and it will burn without being quenched.”
7:21 Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Isra’el: “You may as well eat the meat of your burnt offerings along with that of your sacrifices.
7:22 For I didn’t speak to your ancestors or give them orders concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
7:23 Rather, what I did order them was this: ‘Pay attention to what I say. Then I will be your God, and you will be my people. In everything, live according to the way that I order you, so that things will go well for you.’
7:24 But they neither listened nor paid attention, but lived according to their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, thus going backward and not forward.
7:25 You have done this from the day your ancestors came out of Egypt until today. Even though I sent you all my servants the prophets, sending them time after time,
7:26 they would not listen or pay attention to me, but stiffened their necks; they did worse than their ancestors.
7:27 So tell them all this; but they won’t listen to you; likewise, call to them; but they won’t answer you.
7:28 Therefore, say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Adonai their God. They won’t take correction; faithfulness has perished; it has vanished from their mouths.
7:29 Cut off your hair, and throw it away, take up a lament on the bare hills, for Adonai has rejected and abandoned the generation that rouses his anger.’
7:30 “For the people of Y’hudah have done what is evil from my perspective,” says Adonai; “they have set up their detestable things in the house which bears my name, to defile it.
7:31 They have built the high places of Tofet in the Ben-Hinnom Valley, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, something I never ordered; in fact, such a thing never even entered my mind!
7:32 Therefore, the days are coming,” says Adonai, “when it will no longer be called either Tofet or the Ben-Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter — they will put the dead in Tofet, because there will be no space left [anywhere else].
7:33 The corpses of this people will become food for the birds in the air and the wild animals; no one will frighten them away.
7:34 Then in the cities of Y’hudah and the streets of Yerushalayim I will silence the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of bridegroom and bride; because the land will be reduced to ruins.
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