Jeremiah 7
God promises to end the Jewish nation
God’s House can’t protect Judah now
1The LORD told Jeremiah:2I want you to go to my Temple, stand at the entrance into the courtyards, and deliver this message. Say, Listen to me. I’m here to deliver the LORD’s message to the people of Judah and to anyone else who walks through these gates to worship him. 3This is what the God of Israel and the LORD of everyone else wants you to hear: Stop doing what you know is wrong. Let me live in you, and I’ll let you keep living in your land.
4Don’t believe that lie you’ve been chanting: We’ve got the LORD’s House. [1] We’ve got the LORD’s House. We’ve got the LORD’s House.
Judah’s choice: to-do or to die
5Here are the conditions you need to meet:- Experience a genuine change of heart and behavior.
- Treat one another fairly.
7If you can do that, I’ll live here among you on this land I promised your ancestors. I told them that they and their descendants could have it forever. 8But you put your faith in lies. And that’s going to hurt you.
9Do you think I’m going to pretend you’re doing nothing wrong? You steal. Murder. Commit adultery. Lie. Give offerings to Baal. Chase after other gods.
Judah thinks the Temple keeps them safe
10Here’s the kicker. After all that, you have the nerve to show up at my House—the LORD’s Temple—and say, “We’re safe.” Then you go back to you’re disgusting way of life.11Do you think it’s okay that my House, named after me, is a hangout for thieves? I’m the LORD and I can see what’s going on. 12Can you? Do you think you’re safe here? Go to the ruins of Shiloh. [3] That’s where your ancestors set up Israel’s first place of worship in this land. Look at how safe those wicked people were.
13So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’ve done all these hurtful things I just listed. And you’ve matched my persistent warnings with your persistent disregard. 14Well, what I did in Shiloh is what I’m going to do to the LORD’s Temple—a building that you think will keep you safe.
15I’m going to escort you out of my sight and off my land. I’ll do just like I did to your relatives in Ephraim and the rest of Israel up north. [4]
Too late to pray for Judah
16Jeremiah, this message is for you. Don’t bother praying for these people. Don’t ask me to change my mind. We’re well past that. 17Don’t you see what they’re doing in towns all over Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18They are all involved in worshiping idols. Children gather wood. Dads light the fire. And Moms make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. [5]They also take wine offerings for other gods. It’s as though they’re trying to get me mad. 19They may try to provoke me, but all they’re doing is hurting themselves.20So this is what I, the LORD God, will do. I’ll hit them with a firestorm of fury. This fire will destroy everything: people, animals, trees, and crops.
God: Keep your sacrifices
21This comes from the God of Israel and the LORD of everyone else as well: Don’t bother offering me any sacrificed meat. Eat it yourself, for all I care. 22I didn’t bring your ancestors out of Egypt so they could offer me sacrifices. I didn’t even bring up the subject. 23What I said was, “If you obey me, I’ll be your God and you’ll be my people. If you do as I say, your life will be better for it.”24Yet they didn’t obey me. They didn’t even listen. They wanted to do what they shouldn’t do, so they did it. They’re stubborn that way. They didn’t think ahead. They just wanted to cover their backs.
25From the time I led your ancestors out of Egypt until today, I have sent them prophets and other leaders. 26Yet they weren’t interested in what I had to say. So they didn’t listen. Stubborn people. And today’s generation is the worst.
Jeremiah’s tough crowd
27Jeremiah, you’ll talk to these people, but they won’t listen. You’ll call on them, but they’ll ignore you.28So, just tell them this: Okay people, Judah is the nation that ignored the LORD their God when he spoke to them. You didn’t take discipline well. And you’ve lost that loving feeling. It’s gone.
29Cut your hair and throw it to the wind. [6]
Climb a hill and cry out loud.
For the LORD has rejected this generation.
They provoked his anger.
And now they’re on their own. 30Judah is a nation full of bad people now. They desecrated the Temple that’s named after me. They’ve done it by bringing in their disgusting idols and other pagan objects. 31And they keep building altars at Topheth, [7] in Hinnom Valley, so they can keep sacrificing their sons and daughters. I never told them to do that. I would never consider such a thing. [8]
32So, there’s coming a day when people won’t call this place Topheth or Hinnom Valley. They’ll call it Slaughter Valley because of how many people will die there. They’ll fill Topheth with graves and leave the rest of the bodies to the birds and the beasts. No one will remain to shoo them away.
34I will end them. I will silence their laughter and the joyful sound of their brides and grooms in Jerusalem and other cities of Judah. This land will lie in waste.
Footnotes
Some people in Judah seemed to believe God would never let anyone mess with his house, the Jerusalem Temple, or the city, the LORD’s hometown on earth. “The LORD chose Jerusalem. He wants this to be his home. ‘This is my home / My resting place forever. Here is where I will live / For here is where I want to be’” (Psalm 132:13-14). Also, he promised that David’s family would reign over Israel forever: “His dynasty will never end” (2 Samuel 7:13). But the people who later became known as Jews broke the ancient contract that their ancestors had made with God—and that each new generation renewed through the ritual of circumcision. The agreement was if they obeyed God he would protect them and give them what they needed to live. Well, they broke the contract, the neighborhood went south, and the LORD moved. So much for “We’ve got the LORD’s House.” Babylonians later stripped it and turned it into a rock pile. And they did it during the lifetime of Jeremiah and the people who ignored him.
This line reads like a creed, and versions of it show up throughout the Old and New Testaments—the entire Bible. These three groups were among the most vulnerable people in Bible times, as today. God wanted them protected. He had Moses tell the Hebrews that after they crossed into the Promised Land of Canaan they were to shout in unison some of the most important warnings and laws of God, including: “Doomed. Those are people who cheat immigrants, orphans, or widows” (Deuteronomy 27:17).
Shiloh today is called Khirbet Seilun. It was near the center of Ephraim’s tribe, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Jerusalem. Shiloh was where the Hebrews parked their tent worship center, after which the Temple was modeled (Joshua 18:1). Some Bibles call the worship center the Tabernacle. Israelites worship there like they would later at the Temple in Jerusalem. Philistine soldiers apparently destroyed it after they defeated King Saul, killing him and most of his sons.
Israel fell to Assyrian invaders more than a century earlier, in about 722 BC.
The Queen of Heaven was the title of Astarte, also known as Ishtar. She was a lead god in the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, in what is now Iraq. People worshiped outside, under the sky. And the religion spread west to Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt. Some worshippers offered her bread cakes of some sort that were either shaped like her, or shaped in some image associated with her, such as a crescent moon or a star. Images of her that survive show her well endowed and prominently displayed from head to toe.
Cutting hair was a way of expressing grief (Job 1:20). As wind scattered the hair, invaders would deport and scatter survivors of the battles.
Topheth was a site in the Hinnom Valley just outside Jerusalem’s city walls, to the south. This is where some people of Judah reportedly sacrificed their own children to a god named Molech, much like others sacrificed sheep and bulls. Some kings of Jerusalem once sacrificed people there (2 Kings 23:10).
It was illegal among Jews to sacrifice humans (Leviticus 18:21).
Discussion Questions
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