Trust Not in Lying Words
Jeremiah 7, verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah. Jeremiah 7, verse 2. Thus says the Lord God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your practices, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Jeremiah 7, verse 3. Do not entrust yourselves to lying words, for they will not profit you when you say, ‘It is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Jeremiah 7, verse 4. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your practices, if you thoroughly bring about judgment between a man and his neighbor, Jeremiah 7, verse 5. and do not oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place or walk after foreign gods to your hurt, Jeremiah 7, verse 6. then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land I gave to your fathers of old and forever. Jeremiah 7, verse 7. “But if you trust in lying words from which you cannot profit, Jeremiah 7, verse 8. and you murder, commit adultery, steal, swear to do wrong, burn incense to Baal, and walk after foreign gods you do not know so as to do evil, Jeremiah 7, verse 9. and come and stand before Me in the house wherein My name is called and say, ‘We have not abstained from doing all these abominations,’ Jeremiah 7, verse 10. then is this house, called by My name, a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I have seen it. Jeremiah 7, verse 11. “But go to My place in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell before, and see what I did to it because of the vices of My people Israel,” says the Lord. Jeremiah 7, verse 12. “Now then, because you did all these works, and I spoke to you but you did not hear Me, and I called you but you did not answer, Jeremiah 7, verse 13. therefore, I will also do to this house, called by My name in which you trust, and the place I gave you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. Jeremiah 7, verse 14. I will cast you out of My sight as I cast out your brethren—all the seed of Ephraim. Jeremiah 7, verse 15. “Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor consider them worthy to be shown mercy. Do not pray nor come to Me about them. I will not hear you. Jeremiah 7, verse 16. Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? Jeremiah 7, verse 17. Their sons gather wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, while their women knead cake dough for the host of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to foreign gods to provoke Me to anger. Jeremiah 7, verse 18. Do they provoke Me to wrath?” says the Lord. “Do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?” Jeremiah 7, verse 19. Therefore, thus says the Lord: “Behold, My wrath and anger is poured out on this place, on men and cattle, on every tree of their field, and on all the fruits of the land. It will burn and not be quenched. Jeremiah 7, verse 20. Gather your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat meat.” Jeremiah 7, verse 21. Thus says the Lord: “For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt. Jeremiah 7, verse 22. But I commanded them this word, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and I will be to you as God, and you shall be to Me as a people. Walk in all My ways I commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ Jeremiah 7, verse 23. Yet they did not hear Me and did not attend their ear. Instead, they walked in the devices of their heart and went backward, not forward. Jeremiah 7, verse 24. From the day their fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I sent you all My servants, the prophets. I sent them by day and early in the morning. Yes, I sent them. Jeremiah 7, verse 25. But they did not hear Me, nor did their ear attend. Instead, they stiffened their neck even more than their fathers.
False Worship Will Be Judged
Jeremiah 7, verse 26. “Therefore, you shall speak this word to them: Jeremiah 7, verse 27. ‘This is the nation that heard not the voice of the Lord, nor received correction. Faith has perished from their mouth. Jeremiah 7, verse 28. Cut off your hair and cast it away. Take up a lamentation on your lips, for the Lord has rejected and repudiated the generation that does these things.’ Jeremiah 7, verse 29. For the sons of Judah did the evil thing in My sight,” says the Lord. “They set their abominations in the house called by My name, to defile it. Jeremiah 7, verse 30. They also built the altar of Tophet in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command them, nor consider in My heart. Jeremiah 7, verse 31. Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when they will no longer say, ‘the Altar of Tophet,’ or, ‘the Valley of the Son of Hinnom,’ but instead, ‘the Valley of the Slain’; and they will be buried in Tophet, for there is no other place. Jeremiah 7, verse 32. The dead of this people will also be food for the birds of heaven and the wild beasts of the land. No one will scare them away. Jeremiah 7, verse 33. I shall cause to cease the glad and joyful voice, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, from the cities of Judah and the thoroughfares of Jerusalem. For the whole land shall be desolate.