Jeremiah 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh:

"Stand at the gate of Yahweh's house and announce this message there. Say: Listen to what Yahweh has to say, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to bow down before Yahweh."

This is what Yahweh, the Commander of angel armies, the God of Israel, says: Fix your ways and your actions, and I will let you keep living in this place.

Don't put your trust in misleading words, chanting, 'The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh!'

No — if you genuinely fix your ways and your actions, if you truly treat each other with justice,

if you stop exploiting immigrants, orphans, and widows, if you stop shedding innocent blood in this place, and if you stop chasing after other gods — which only destroys you —

then I will let you keep living in this place, in the land I gave to your ancestors permanently, without end.

Look at you — you're trusting in misleading words that can't help you at all.

You steal, murder, break your marriage commitments, swear falsely, burn offerings to Baal, and chase after other gods you've never even known —

and then you come and stand before me in this house that carries my name and say, 'We're safe!' — just so you can keep doing all these disgusting things?

Has this house that carries my name become a hideout for criminals in your eyes? Because that's exactly what I see happening — this is Yahweh speaking.

Go take a look at Shiloh — the place where I first made my name live — and see what I did to it because of how badly my people Israel behaved.

And now, because you've done all these things — this is Yahweh speaking — and because I spoke to you again and again but you wouldn't listen, and I called out to you but you refused to answer —

what I did to Shiloh, I will now do to this house that carries my name — the house you trust in — and to this place I gave to you and your ancestors.

I will throw you out of my sight, just like I threw out all your relatives — the entire bloodline of Ephraim.

"As for you, Jeremiah — don't pray for these people. Don't lift up a cry or a prayer for them. Don't plead with me, because I will not listen to you.

Can't you see what they're doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods just to provoke me.

But are they really provoking me?" — this is Yahweh speaking — "Aren't they really just destroying themselves, to their own shame?"

So this is what the Master, Yahweh, says: "Watch — my anger, my burning fury, is about to be poured out on this place — on people and animals, on the trees in the field and the crops in the ground. It will burn and nothing will put it out."

This is what Yahweh, the Commander of angel armies, the God of Israel, says: "Go ahead — pile your burnt offerings on top of your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!

Because when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I didn't talk to them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, and I didn't give them commands about those things.

What I actually told them was this: 'Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in every path I lay out for you, so that life will go well for you.'

But they didn't listen. They didn't pay attention. Instead, they followed the plans and the stubbornness of their own corrupt hearts. They went backward instead of forward.

From the day your ancestors left Egypt until today, I have sent you all my servants the prophets — day after day, getting up early and sending them.

But they didn't listen to me. They didn't pay attention. They stiffened their necks and did worse than their ancestors.

"You will tell them all of this, but they won't listen to you. You will call out to them, but they won't answer.

So say to them: 'This is a nation that refuses to listen to the voice of Yahweh their God and refuses to accept correction. Truth has died — it's been cut off from their lips.'

"Cut off your hair and throw it away. Lift up a funeral song on the barren heights, because Yahweh has rejected and abandoned this generation that has provoked his fury."

"The people of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes" — this is Yahweh speaking. "They have set up their disgusting idols in the house that carries my name, making it unclean.

They have built the high altars of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire — something I never commanded, something that never even crossed my mind.

"So watch out — the days are coming" — this is Yahweh speaking — "when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there's no room left anywhere else.

The corpses of these people will become food for the birds in the sky and the animals on the ground, and no one will scare them away.

I will silence the sound of joy and the sound of celebration, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem — because the land will become a wasteland."