2 ARST “Go to the entrance of my house and give this message to the people: You people of Judah, who worship here, listen to this message from Yahweh. BSB BSB: “Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD.
3 ARST This is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says to you:‘If you improve your ways and start doing what is right, I will allow you to remain living in your land. BSB BSB: Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place.
4 ARST But some people are repeatedly saying to you,“The temple of Yahweh is here, so we will be safe; he will not allow us and the temple to be destroyed.” But do not pay attention to what they say, because they are deceiving you. BSB BSB: Do not trust in deceptive words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’
5 ARST I will act mercifully to you only if you change your behavior and stop doing evil things, and if you start to act fairly toward others, BSB BSB: For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another,
6 ARST and if you stop oppressing foreigners who live in your country, and orphans and widows, and if you stop murdering people and worshiping foreign gods. BSB BSB: if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,
7 ARST If you do what I have told you, I will allow you to stay in this land that I promised to your ancestors long ago that it would belong to them and their descendants forever. BSB BSB: then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8 ARST People are repeatedly telling you,“The temple is here, so we are safe,” and you are trusting that what they are saying is true. But those people are deceiving you; what they say is worthless. BSB BSB: But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.
9 ARST You think that you can steal things, murder people, commit adultery, tell lies in court, and worship Baal and all those other gods that you did not know about previously. BSB BSB: Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,
10 ARST Then you think you can come here and stand in front of this temple, which is my temple, and say“Nothing bad will happen to us!”, while you continue to do all those disgusting things. BSB BSB: and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’?
12 ARST Long ago I put my sacred tent in the district of Shiloh, to be a place where people would worship me. Think about how I destroyed it because my people, the Israelite people, did many wicked things there. BSB BSB: But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.
13 ARST And while you were continually doing those wicked things, I told you about it many times, but you refused to listen. I called out to you, but you refused to answer me. BSB BSB: And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,
14 ARST Therefore, just as I destroyed Shiloh, I will now destroy this temple that was built for people to worship me, this temple that you trust in, in this place that I gave to you and your ancestors. BSB BSB: therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers.
15 ARST And I will expel you from this land and send you to other countries far away from me, just as I did to your relatives, the people of Israel.” BSB BSB: And I will cast you out of My presence, just as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.
16 ARST Yahweh said to me,“Jeremiah, do not pray for these people any longer. Do not call out on their behalf or plead for me to help them, because I will not pay any attention to you. BSB BSB: As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.
17 ARST Do you see the wicked things that they are doing in the streets of Jerusalem and in the other towns in Judah? BSB BSB: Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 ARST The children gather firewood and their fathers make fires on the altars to burn sacrifices. The women knead dough to make cakes to offer to their goddess Asherah who is called the Queen of Heaven. And on their altars they pour out offerings of wine to their other idols. All of those things cause me to become extremely angry! BSB BSB: The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.
19 ARST But I am not the one whom they are hurting; they are really hurting themselves by doing these things for which they should be very ashamed!” BSB BSB: But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?
20 ARST So Yahweh the Lord says this:“Because I am extremely angry with what happens at this place, I will punish these people severely; my being very angry will be like a fire that will not be extinguished, and I will destroy the people, their animals, their fruit trees, and their crops.” BSB BSB: Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.
21 ARST Therefore, this is what Yahweh, commander of the armies of angels, the God of Israel, says:“Take away your offerings that you bring to burn completely on your altars and your other sacrifices; do not give them to me; eat them yourselves! BSB BSB: This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!
22 ARST When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not offerings to be completely burned on the altar or other sacrifices that I wanted from them. BSB BSB: For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,
23 ARST What I told them was,‘Obey me; if you do that, I will be your God and you will be my people. If you do the things that I want you to do, everything will go well for you.’ BSB BSB: but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.
24 ARST But your ancestors would not pay any attention to me. They continued to do the evil things that they wanted to do, everything that in their stubborn inner beings they desired to do. Instead of coming closer to me, they went further away from me. BSB BSB: Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.
25 ARST From the day that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to send my prophets to you repeatedly. BSB BSB: From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again.
26 ARST But you, my people, have not listened to me or paid attention to what I said; you have been stubborn, and you have done more sinful things than your ancestors did.” BSB BSB: Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.
27 ARST Then Yahweh said to me,“When you tell all this to my people, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. BSB BSB: When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.
28 ARST Say to them,‘You people of Judah have not obeyed Yahweh, your God; you have not accepted it when he tried to correct you. No one among you is truthful; you do not say anything that is true; you speak only lies.’ BSB BSB: Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.
29 ARST So, tell them to cut off their hair to show that they are mourning; tell them to go up into the barren hills and sing a sad funeral song, Because I have completely rejected this generation of people who have made me angry.” BSB BSB: Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’
32 ARST So they should beware! There will be a time when that place will no longer be called Topheth or the Hinnom Valley; instead, it will be called the Valley of Slaughter. There will be a huge number of people who will be buried there, with the result that there will be no space to bury more bodies. BSB BSB: So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.
33 ARST The corpses of my people that are not buried and are left on the ground will be eaten by vultures and wild animals, and there will be no one to shoo them away. BSB BSB: The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away.
34 ARST There will be no one singing and laughing anymore in the streets of Jerusalem; there will be no more joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides in Judah, because the land will be completely destroyed.” BSB BSB: I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.