the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Hebrew Names Version
Jeremiah 7
1 The word that came to Yirmeyahu from the LORD, saying, 2 Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Yehudah, who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. 3 Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Yisra'el, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Don't you trust in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, are these. 5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; 6 if you don't oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: 7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore. 8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Ba`al, and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10 and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations? 11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the LORD. 12 But go you now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Yisra'el. 13 Now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer: 14 therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Efrayim.
16 Therefore don't you pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. 17 Don't you see what they do in the cities of Yehudah and in the streets of Yerushalayim? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink-offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19 Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD; [do they] not [provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? 20 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21 Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Yisra'el: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat you flesh. 22 For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Mitzrayim, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: 23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk you in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. 24 But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Mitzrayim to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: 26 yet they didn't listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers. 27 You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. 28 You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the LORD their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair, [Yerushalayim], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30 For the children of Yehudah have done that which is evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. 31 They have built the high places of Tofet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, neither came it into my mind. 32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tofet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Tofet, until there be no place [to bury]. 33 The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the eretz; and none shall frighten them away. 34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Yehudah, and from the streets of Yerushalayim, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.