1. The manifestation* was upon Jeremiah to utter, as he stood
before the Lord,
2. "Stand at the gate* of the Lord's House* and declare
this utterance* there and say, 'Listen to the manifestation of the Lord, all
you of the House of Judah, who enter these doors to
worship the Lord.'
3. "This is what the Almighty Lord God of Israel says,
'Sanctify your ways and your works, and I shall settle you in this country.'
4. "And do not rely on the manifestation of usurpers
who tell you, 'It is the Lord's Temple, it is the Lord's Temple!'
5. "For you are the Temple of the Lord if you clean* up
your ways and your works and do justice between a man and his companions,*
6. "And [if you do justice] by the inhabitants, by the
orphans and the widows; [if] you do not cheat and oppress, nor spill innocent
blood in this land,* nor follow foreign gods, which will [surely] be to your
detriment,
7. "I shall settle you, then, in this country, in the
land that I gave to your ancestors since the [beginning of the] universe.
8. "Yet, behold, you are [still] relying on the
manifestation of usurpers that are of no benefit.
9. "You are thieves, killers and fornicators; you swear
by the usurpers and you consecrate with consecrations to Baal, and you follow
the gods that you know not.
10. "Then you come and stand in this House, over which
my name is called, and you say, 'deliver us,' yet you do all this evil.
11. "Why, is this house, over which my name is called a
den* of thieves in your eyes?
12. "Because of that go to my country in Shilo, where I rested my name
in the beginning, and see the thing that I did on account of the evil of my
people Israel.
13. "And now in spite of doing all these works," said the Lord,
"I vowed* and declared* to you -- but you did not listen, I called you
but you did not respond.
14. "You did to this house, over which my name is called, that which
you relied on, and to this town that I gave you and your ancestors as you did
do to Shiloh.
15. "And I shall cast you away from my face,* as all your brethren
cast out all the offspring of Ephraim.
16. "You, then, pray not for this people here and beg not on their
behalf, do not pray to me, for I will not hear you.
17. "Did you not see what they did in the towns of Judea and the
streets of Jerusalem?
18. "Children pick up wood and the parents kindle the fires, the women
knead dough, to make [star-shaped] pastries and invite the fireworks* of
heaven, to drink libations to other gods and provoke my wrath.
19. "It is not me they anger," says the Lord, "except
themselves, as they shame their own faces."
20. That is why the Lord God says, "Behold, my anger and wrath shall
rest upon this country, upon humanity and animal, upon the tree outside and
the fruit of the earth; they shall burn and they shall not be
extinguished."
21. This is what the Almighty Lord, God Israel, said, "Their
holocausts shall be greater than their sacrifices, and they shall eat the meat
that I did not command their ancestors to eat.
22. "And I did not command them on the Day that I brought them up from
the Land of Egypt, neither regarding holocausts, nor regarding sacrifice.
23. "Except I gave them this utterance,* and said, 'Listen to my
voice: I shall be your God and you shall be my people, and walk in every path
that I command you, so as to be blessed.'
24. "But they would not listen, and they would not allow their ears to
hear, except they would follow their predilections* and the desires of their
evil hearts; they turned backwards instead of going forwards.*
25. "This from the Day that their ancestors left* the Land of Egypt
until this Day, and I sent them my servants the prophets in every age.*
26. "I sent them beforehand, but they did not listen, they did not
turn* their ears to me, and they stiffened their necks even more than their
ancestors.
27. "And when you tell them all these manifestations,* they will not
hear you, you shall call them but they will not respond to you.
28. "Faith has disappeared and has vanished from their mouths.
29. "Sheer* off your hair and cast it off and take up the paths of
obedience,* as the Lord shall be angered and shall leave her in Diaspora for
centuries.
30. "Because the Children of Judah, those that [represented] evil before
me," said the Lord, "and those that consecrated their defilement in the
House upon which my name is called, thus they defiled it.
31. "And they shall build the holocausts in Tophet,* by the sands of
Barhannom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which I neither
commanded nor would it rise in my heart.*
32. "Because of that, behold, there will come Days," says the
Lord, "when Tophet shall not be spoken of again, nor Barhannom, except as
the Riverbed of the Killed, and they shall entomb in Tophet the inhabitants of
the country.
33. "And the corpses of the people here will be food for the birds of
the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no deliverer.
34. "And there vanished from the towns of Judea and the streets of
Jerusalem the voice of joy, the voice of happiness, the voice of the groom and
the voice of the bride, because the whole earth would be destined for
destruction."