The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying,

Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah, and proclaim this word there and say, Hear the word of Jehovah, all Judah, who enter through these gates to worship Jehovah.

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

Do not trust in the words of falsehood that say, The  ¹temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, these buildings are the temple of Jehovah.

But if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice between a man and his neighbor,

If you do not  ¹oppress the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor go after other gods to your own ruin;

Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers from eternity to eternity.

See, you are trusting in words of falsehood that do not benefit you.

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal and go after other gods which you have not known,

Then 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?

Has this house which is called by My name become a den of robbers in your eyes? Yet I, even I, have seen it, declares Jehovah.

But go now to My place which was in  ¹Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

And now, because you have done all these works, declares Jehovah, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not listen, and I called you, but you did not answer;

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

And I will cast you out from before Me, as I cast out all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.

And as for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a ringing cry or a prayer for them; and do not intercede with Me, for I will not hear you.

Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes for the  ¹queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

Are they provoking Me to anger? declares Jehovah. Are they not provoking themselves, to the shaming of their own faces?

Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.

Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh.

For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

But this is what I commanded them, saying, Hear My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and walk in all the way which I command you, that it may go well with you.

But they did not listen or incline their ear, but walked in the counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and went backward and not forward.

From the day that your fathers came out from the land of Egypt unto this day I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

But they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.

So you shall speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

And you shall say to them, This is the nation which did not listen to the voice of Jehovah their God and did not take correction; the truth has perished and is cut off from their mouth.

Cut off your  ¹hair and throw it away,
And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For Jehovah has rejected and forsaken
The generation of His overflowing wrath.

For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight, declares Jehovah; they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it.

And 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, something I did not command, nor did it come up in My heart.

Therefore, days are coming, declares Jehovah, when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there will be no other place.

And the corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away.

And I will cause the voice of gladness and the voice of joy to cease, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem; for the land will become a waste.

At that time, declares Jehovah, they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its princes and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves.

And they will spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served and which they have gone after and which they have sought and which they have worshipped; and they will not be gathered up or buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground.

And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places where I have driven them, declares Jehovah of hosts.

And you shall say to them, Thus says Jehovah,
Do men fall and not rise again? =If one turns away, does he not return?

Why has this people Jerusalem
Turned away in perpetual apostasy?
They hold fast to deceit;
They refuse to turn back.

I have listened carefully and heard;
They have not spoken rightly;
There is no one who repents of his wickedness,
Saying, What have I done?
Everyone turns to his own course,
Like a horse rushing headlong into battle.

Even the stork in the sky
Knows its appointed times,
And the turtledove and the swallow and the crane
Keep the time of their coming;
But My people do not know
The ordinance of Jehovah.

How can you say, We are wise,
And the law of Jehovah is with us?
But look, the false pen of the scribes
Has turned it into falsehood.

The wise men are put to shame;
They are dismayed and are taken;
See, they have rejected the word of Jehovah;
And what wisdom do they have?

Therefore I will give their wives to others,
Their fields to those who will possess them;
For from the small unto the great,
Everyone is wresting unjust gain;
From the prophet even to the priest,
Everyone is dealing falsely.

And they have healed
The brokenness of the daughter of My people slightly,
Saying, Peace, peace,
Although there is no peace.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
They were not at all ashamed;
They did not even know to blush.
Therefore they will fall with those who fall;
At the time of their  ¹punishment they will stumble,
Says Jehovah.

I will utterly take them away,
Declares Jehovah;
There are no grapes on the vine,
And there are no figs on the fig tree;
Even the leaves are withered;
And what I gave them has passed away from them.

Why do we sit? Gather yourselves,
And let us go up to the fortified cities
And be silent there,
Because Jehovah our God has silenced us
And made us drink poisonous water,
Because we have sinned against Jehovah.

We hoped for peace, but no good came;
For a time of healing, but there was terror.

The snorting of their horses
Is heard from Dan;
At the sound of the neighing of their stallions
The whole land quakes.
And they come and devour the land and its fullness,
The city and those who dwell in it.

For I will send among you serpents,
Adders, for which there is no enchantment;
And they will bite you,
Declares Jehovah.

Oh that there were comforting to me in sorrow!
My heart within me is faint.

It is the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people
From a land very far away:
Is Jehovah not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?
Why have they provoked Me to anger
With their graven images and with strange idols?

The harvest has passed, the summer has ended,
And we are not saved.

For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the recovery of the daughter of my people
Not occurred?

Oh that my head were waters,
And my eye a fountain of tears,
That I might  ¹weep day and night
For the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had a traveler's lodging place in the wilderness
That I might leave my people and go away from them,
For all of them are adulterers and an assembly of treacherous men.

They bend their tongue like their bow;
Falsehood, and not truth,
Prevails in the land;
For they proceed from evil to evil,
And they do not know Me, declares Jehovah.

Let each man be on guard against his neighbor
And not confide in any brother;
For every brother only supplants,
And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

And everyone deceives his neighbor
And does not speak the truth;
They teach their tongue to speak falsehood;
They weary themselves committing iniquity.

Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit;
Through deceit they refuse to know Me,
Declares Jehovah.

Therefore thus says Jehovah of hosts,
Indeed, I will refine them and test them;
For what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
It speaks deceit.
Each speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth,
But in his heart he lays an ambush for him.

Shall I not punish them for these things?
Declares Jehovah;
And on a nation such as this
Shall My soul not avenge itself?

For the mountains I will take up a  ¹weeping and wailing,
And for the pastures of the wilderness, a lamentation;
Because they have been burned up so that no one passes through,
And the sound of cattle is not heard;
Both the birds of the sky and the beasts
Have fled and have gone.

And I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
A habitation of jackals;
And I will make the cities of Judah
A desolation without inhabitant.

Who is the wise man who can understand this, and he to whom the mouth of Jehovah has spoken, that he might declare it? Why is the land destitute, burned like the wilderness, so that no one passes through?

And Jehovah said, Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to My voice or walked in  ¹My law,

But have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them;

Therefore thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

And I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, and send the sword after them until I have consumed them.

Thus says Jehovah of hosts,
Consider, and call for the mourning women to come,
And send for the skillful women to come;

Let them hasten and take up a wailing for  ¹us,
That  ¹our eyes may shed tears
And  ¹our eyelids may pour forth water.

For a voice of wailing
Was heard from Zion:
How we are ruined!
We are utterly put to shame! =For we have forsaken the land
Because they have cast down our dwellings.

Therefore listen, O women, to the word of Jehovah,
And let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
And teach your daughters wailing,
And let each teach her neighbor a lamentation.

For death has come up through our windows;
It has entered our palaces
To cut off the children from the streets,
The young men from the open squares.

Speak: Thus declares Jehovah,
And the corpses of men will fall
Like dung on the surface of the field
And like a sheaf after the reaper,
And there will be no one to gather them.

Thus says Jehovah,
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
And let not the mighty man glory in his might;
Let not the rich man glory in his riches.

But let him who glories glory in this,
That he has insight and knows Me,
That I am Jehovah who exercises lovingkindness,
Justice, and righteousness on earth;
For in these things I delight, declares Jehovah.

Indeed, days are coming, declares Jehovah, when I will punish all those who are  ¹circumcised and yet  ¹uncircumcised:

Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all those who cut the corners of their beards, who inhabit the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.