Jeremiah 7 · The Lantern

Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:

Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and call there this word, and say: Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah, you who come in through these gates to bow down to the LORD.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Make good your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.

Do not trust for yourselves in the words of falsehood, saying: The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these!

For if you thoroughly make good your ways and your deeds, if you thoroughly do judgment between a man and his neighbor,

the sojourner, the orphan and the widow you do not oppress, and innocent blood you do not shed in this place, and after other gods you do not walk, to your own evil —

then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land I gave to your fathers, from everlasting and to everlasting.

See, you are trusting for yourselves in the words of falsehood, which do not profit.

Stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing to falsehood, burning incense to Baal, and walking after other gods you have not known —

and then you come and stand before my face in this house on which my name is called, and you say: We are delivered — in order to do all these abominations!

Has this house on which my name is called become a cave of robbers in your eyes? I too — see, I have seen it — the utterance of the LORD.

And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.

Wherefore, brethren, if we do the will of God our Father, we shall be of the first Church, that is, spiritual, that hath been created before the sun and moon; but if we do not the will of the Lord, we shall be of the scripture that saith, "My house was made a den of robbers." So then let us choose to be of the Church of life, that we may be saved.

"Has not this house, in which my name is invoked, been made a den of thieves before your eyes? I who am, I have seen it, says the Lord." I believe that it was from here that the Gospel took: "It is written, 'My father's house will be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves," or, according to another Gospel, "a house of trade." The church of God is turne…

For go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I settled my name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.

And now, because you have done all these works — the utterance of the LORD — and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, and you did not hear, and I called you and you did not answer,

I will do to the house on which my name is called, in which you are trusting, and to the place I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

And I will throw you out from before my face, as I threw out all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

And you — do not pray for this people, and do not lift up for them a ringing cry or a prayer, and do not entreat me, for I will not hear you.

Just as God knows how to heal, so does he furthermore know how to smite. He knows how to make peace but likewise permits evils. He prefers repentance but moreover commands Jeremiah not to pray for the reversal of ills on behalf of the sinful people.

And with regard to the deluge again He did the self-same thing, by His acts excusing Himself to Noah. And also to Ezekiel in like manner, when He caused him dwelling in Babylon to see men's evil deeds in Jerusalem.

(Verse 16.) Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor take on their praise and prayer (or do not ask to obtain mercy for them). And do not resist me, for I will not listen to you. So that it may not seem that the Prophet does not obtain what he asks for, God commands that he not pray for the sinful people who do not repent.

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

The sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of the heavens, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, in order to provoke me.

Is it me they provoke? — the utterance of the LORD. Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: See, my anger and my wrath are poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the tree of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.

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

You are blessed who are delivered from the curse. Christ, the Son of God, by his coming has confirmed and completed the law but has taken away the additional precepts, although not all of them, yet at least the more grievous ones. He confirmed the former and abolished the latter, and he has again set the free will of humankind at liberty.

(Verse 21) Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. When He condemns the temple, He consequently condemns the sacrifices as well; and He indirectly accuses them because they offer victims not out of reverence for Him, but out of a desire for feasts.

It is made clear also from this that the obsolete prescriptions of the law had been imposed because of Israel's limitations.

For I did not speak with your fathers, and I did not command them, on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice.

But this word I commanded them, saying: Obey my voice, and I will be God to you and you will be a people to me; and walk in all the way I command you, that it may be good for you.

But they did not hear and did not incline their ear, and they walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart; and they went backward and not forward.

From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I sent to you all my servants the prophets, day by day, rising early and sending.

But they did not hear me and did not incline their ear; and they stiffened their neck, they did more evil than their fathers.

And you will speak all these words to them, and they will not hear you; and you will call to them, and they will not answer you.

And you will say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD its God and did not take discipline. Faithfulness has perished and is cut off from their mouth.

Shear your hair of consecration and cast it away, and lift a lament on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned the generation of his fury.

The Valley of Slaughter

For the sons of Judah have done the evil in my eyes — the utterance of the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house on which my name is called, 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 — which I did not command, and it did not come up on my heart.

Therefore, see, days are coming — the utterance of the LORD — when it will no longer be said, Topheth and the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter; and they will bury in Topheth for lack of room.

And the carcass of this people will be food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, with none making them afraid.

And I will make cease from the cities of Judah and from 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 will become a ruin.

Jeremiah7

Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

The Valley of Slaughter