Jeremiah's Message at the Temple Gate

2Hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judea. 3Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Correct your ways and your devices, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4Trust not in yourselves with lying words, for they shall not profit you at all, saying, It is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. 5For if ye thoroughly correct your ways and your practices, and do indeed execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; 6and oppress not the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and go not after strange gods to your hurt: 7then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers of old and for ever.

8But whereas ye have trusted in lying words, whereby ye shall not be profited; 9and ye murder, and commit adultery, and steal, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and are gone after strange gods whom ye know not, 10so that it is evil with you; yet have ye come, and stood before me in the house, whereon my name is called, and ye have said, We have refrained from doing all these abominations. 11Is my house, whereon my name is called, a den of robbers in your eyes? And, behold, I have seen it, saith the Lord.

12For go ye to my place with is in Selo, where I caused my name to dwell before, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13And now, because ye have done all these deeds, and I spoke to you, but ye hearkened not to me; and I called you, but ye answered not; 14therefore I also will do to the house whereon my name is called, wherein ye trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Selo. 15And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast away your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.

Judah's Idolatry Persists

16Therefore pray not thou for this people, and intercede not for them to be pitied, yea, pray not, and approach me not for them: for I will not hearken unto thee. 17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18Their children gather wood, and their fathers kindle a fire, and their women knead dough, to make cakes to the host of heaven; and they have poured out drink-offerings to strange gods, that they might provoke me to anger. 19Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves, that their faces may be ashamed? 20Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, my anger and wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon every tree of their field, and upon the fruits of the land; and it shall burn, and not be quenched.

21Thus saith the Lord, Gather your whole-burnt-offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh. 22For I spoke not to your fathers, and commanded them not in the day wherein I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole-burnt-offerings and sacrifice: 23but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hear ye my voice, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a people: and walk ye in all my ways which I shall command you, that it may be well with you. 24But they hearkened not to me, and their ear gave no heed, but they walked in the imaginations of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward; 25from the day that their fathers went forth out of the land of Egypt, even until this day. And I sent to you all my servants, the prophets, by day and early in the morning: yea, I sent them, 26but they hearkened not to me, and their ear gave no heed; and they made their neck harder than their fathers.

27Therefore thou shalt speak this word to them; 28This is the nation which has not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, nor received correction: truth has failed from their mouth.

29Cut off thine hair, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on thy lips; for the Lord has reprobated and rejected the generation that does these things.

The Valley of Slaughter

30For the children of Juda have wrought evil before me, saith the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house on which my name is called, to defile it. 31And they have built the altar of Tapheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters with fire; which I did not command them to do, neither did I design it in my heart.

32Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Tapheth, and the valley of the son of Ennom, but, The valley of the slain; and they shall bury in Tapheth, for want of room. 33And the dead bodies of this people shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the wild beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to drive them away. 34And I will destroy out of the cities of Juda, and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of them that make merry, and the voice of them that rejoice, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the whole land shall become a desolation.