The temple of God shall not protect a sinful people, without a sincere
conversion. The Lord will not receive the prayers of the prophet for
them: because they are obstinate in their sins.
7:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:
7:2. Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this
word, and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all ye men of Juda, that
enter in at these gates, to adore the Lord.
7:3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Make your ways and
your doings good: and I will dwell with you in this place.
7:4. Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the
temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord.
7:5. For if you will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will
execute judgment between a man and his neighbour,
7:6. If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and
shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods
to your own hurt,
7:7. I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to
your fathers from the beginning and for evermore.
7:8. Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit
you:
7:9. To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer
to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not.
7:10. And you have come, and stood before me in this house, in which my
name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have
done all these abominations.
7:11. Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in
your eyes become a den of robbers? I, I am he: I have seen it, saith the
Lord.
7:12. Go ye to my place in Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning:
and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel:
7:13. And now, because you have done all these works, saith the Lord:
and I have spoken to you rising up early, and speaking, and you have not
heard: and I have called you, and you have not answered:
7:14. I will do to this house, in which my name is called upon, and in
which you trust, and to the place which I have given you and your
fathers, as I did to Silo.
7:15. And I will cast you away from before my face, as I have cast away
all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim.
7:16. Therefore do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee
praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will
not hear thee.
7:17. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the
streets of Jerusalem?
7:18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the
women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to
offer libations to strange gods, and to provoke me to anger.
Queen of heaven... That is, the moon, which they worshipped under that
name.
7:19. Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves,
to the confusion of their own countenance?
7:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my
indignation is enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts,
and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it
shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
7:21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt
offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh.
7:22. For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter
of burnt offerings and sacrifices.
I commanded them not... Viz., such sacrifices as the Jews at this time
offered, without obedience; which was the thing principally commanded:
so that in comparison with it, the offering of the holocausts and
sacrifices was of small account.
7:23. But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and
I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the
way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.
7:24. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in
their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went
backward and not forward,
7:25. From the day that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt,
even to this day. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets,
from day to day, rising up early and sending.
7:26. And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but
have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers.
7:27. And thou shalt speak to them all these words, but they will not
hearken to thee: and thou shalt call them, but they will not answer
thee.
7:28. And thou shalt say to them: This is a nation which hath not
hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction:
faith is lost, and is taken away out of their mouth.
7:29. Cut off thy hair, and cast it away: and take up a lamentation on
high: for the Lord hath rejected, and forsaken the generation of his
wrath,
7:30. Because the children of Juda have done evil in my eyes, saith the
Lord. They have set their abominations in the house in which my name is
called upon, to pollute it;
7:31. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the
valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons, and their daughters in
the fire: which I commanded not, nor thought on in my heart.
7:32. Therefore behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and it shall
no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom: but the
valley of slaughter: and they shall bury in Topheth, because there is no
place.
7:33. And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of
the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to
drive them away.
7:34. And I will cause to cease out of the cities of Juda, and out of
the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land
shall be desolate.