1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying:
2Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and there proclaim this word, and say: Hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah, you who enter through these gates to bow down to 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 for yourselves in the words of falsehood, saying, ‘The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh are these!’
5For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly execute justice between a man and his neighbor,
6if you do not oppress the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not go after other gods to your own harm,
7then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land I gave to your fathers from of old and forever.
8Look, you are trusting for yourselves in words of falsehood that are of no benefit.
9Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
10and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?
11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? I too—look, I have seen it, declares Yahweh.
12But go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I first made my name dwell, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
13And now, because you have done all these deeds, declares Yahweh—and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, but you did not listen, and I called to you, but you did not answer—
14therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh.
15And I will cast you out from before my face, just as I cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.
16As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or a prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not be listening to you.
17Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, 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 to anger.
19Is it me they are provoking, declares Yahweh? Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?
20Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Look, my anger and my wrath are being poured out on this place, on man and on beast, on the tree of the field and on the fruit of the ground; 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 the flesh!
22For I did not speak with your fathers, nor command them, on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning matters of burnt offering and sacrifice.
23But this is the thing I commanded them, saying: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, so that it may go well with you.
24But they did not listen, nor incline their ear; they walked in their own counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I sent to you all my servants the prophets, day by day, rising early and sending them.
26But they did not listen to me, nor incline their ear; they stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.
27So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
28Then you shall say to them: This is the nation that did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God and did not accept correction. Faithfulness has perished; it is cut off from their mouth.
29Cut off your consecrated hair and throw it away, and take up a lament on the bare heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30For the sons of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, declares Yahweh. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, defiling it.
31And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire — which I did not command, and which never came up upon my heart.
32Therefore, behold, days are coming — declaration of Yahweh — when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; and they will bury in Topheth until there is no place.
33And the corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them away.
34And I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a ruin.
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