Jeremiah's Message at the Temple Gate

1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2Stand 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. 3Thus 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. 4Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord. 5For if you will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will execute judgment between a man and his neighbour, 6If 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, 7I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore.

8Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit you: 9To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not. 10And 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. 11Is 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.

12Go 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: 13And 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: 14I 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. 15And I will cast you away from before my face, as I have cast away all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim.

Judah's Idolatry Persists

16Therefore 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. 17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The 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. 19Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own countenance? 20Therefore 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.

21Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh. 22For 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. 23But 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. 24But 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, 25From 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. 26And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers.

27And 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. 28And 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.

29Cut 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,

The Valley of Slaughter

30Because 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; 31And 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.

32Therefore 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. 33And 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. 34And 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.