1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 "Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD and call out this word there: 'Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah, you who come in through these gates to bow down to the LORD.'"
3 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Improve your ways and your doings, and I will let you live in this place.
4 Do not put your trust in lying words: 'The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these!'
5 For if you really make your ways and your doings good, if you really do justice between a man and his neighbor,
6 if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not go after other gods to your own hurt,
7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave to your fathers, from forever to forever.
8 See, you put your trust in lying words that are of no use.
9 What? Steal, murder, commit adultery, swear to a lie, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
10 and then come and stand before me in this house that is called by my name and say, 'We are rescued!' so that you may go on doing all these abominations?
11 A cave of bandits, is that what this house called by my name has become in your eyes? I myself, look, I have seen it," declares the LORD.
12 "Go now to my place that was at Shiloh, where I let my name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the evil of my people Israel.
13 And now, since you have done all these deeds," declares the LORD, "and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, yet you did not listen, and I called you, yet you did not answer,
14 I will do to the house called by my name, in which you put your trust, and to the place I gave to you and your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh.
15 I will throw you out from before my face, as I threw out all your brothers, the whole seed of Ephraim.
16 "As for you, do not pray for this people; do not lift up for them a cry or a prayer, and do not plead with me, for I am not listening to you.
17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods so as to provoke me.
19 Is it me they are provoking?" declares the LORD. "Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?"
20 So thus says the Lord GOD: "See, my anger and my wrath are being poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and will not go out."
21 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Heap your burnt offerings on your sacrifices and eat the meat.
22 For I did not speak with your fathers, nor did I command them, on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, about matters of burnt offering and sacrifice.
23 This is what I did command them: 'Listen to my voice, and I will be your God and you will be my people; walk in every way I command you, so that it may be well with you.'
24 But they did not listen or turn their ear; they walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and they went backward and not forward.
25 From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent you all my servants the prophets, day after day, rising early and sending them.
26 But they did not listen to me or turn their ear; they hardened their neck and did more evil than their fathers.
27 "You will speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; you will call to them, but they will not answer you.
28 Say to them, 'This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the LORD its God and has not accepted discipline. Truth has perished; it has been cut off from their mouth.
29 Shear off your crown of hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned the generation that roused his wrath.'
30 "For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes," declares the LORD. "They have placed their vile things in the house called by my name, to make it unclean.
31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing I did not command, and it never came into my mind.
32 Therefore the days are coming," declares the LORD, "when it will no more be called Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; they will bury in Topheth for lack of room.
33 The dead bodies of this people will become food for the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them off.
34 I will silence in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the sound of rejoicing and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a waste.