Amend Your Ways to Live

1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

3Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

5For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

6If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

7Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.

8Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

9Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not;

10And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD.

12But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

13And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not;

14Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, in which you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

15And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole descendants of Ephraim.

16Therefore pray not for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear you.

17See you not what they do 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 their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

19Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?

20Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

21Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Add your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

22For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

23But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

24But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil hearts, and went backward, and not forward.

25Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

26Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

27Therefore you shall speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to you: you shall also call unto them; but they will not answer you.

28But you shall say unto them, This is a nation that obeys not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receives correction: truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

29Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

The Valley of Slaughter

30For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

31And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

32Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there is no room.

33And the dead bodies of this people shall be food for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.

34Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.