World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 7
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1The word that came to from , saying, "Stand in the of house, and proclaim this word there, and say, 'Hear word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these to .'" of Armies, the of Israel says, "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to in this place. Don't in lying words, saying, ' temple, temple, temple, are these.' For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly between a man and his neighbor; if you don't oppress the , , and the , and don't in this place, and don't walk after other gods to your own hurt, then I will cause you to in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even more. Behold, you in lying words that can't profit. Will you steal, , , falsely, to , and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are ,' that you may do all these ? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it," . "But go now to my place which was in , where I caused my name to at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. Now, because you have done all these works," , "and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer; therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you , and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to . I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole of . "Therefore don't for this people. Don't lift up a cry or for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. Don't you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of ? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the , and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of , and to pour out drink to other gods, that they may provoke me to . Do they provoke me to ?" . "Don't they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?" Therefore says: "Behold, my and my will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched." of Armies, the of Israel says: "Add your burnt offerings to your and eat meat. For I didn't speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of concerning burnt offerings or ; but this thing I commanded them, saying, ', and I will be your , and you shall be my people. Walk in all that I command you, that it may be well with you.' But they didn't listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil , and went backward, and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of to this day, I have sent to you all my servants , daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they didn't listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers. "You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall tell them, 'This is the nation that has not listened to their voice, nor received . Truth has , and is their .' your hair, and throw it away, and take up a on the heights; for has rejected and forsaken the generation of his . "For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight," . "They have set their in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. They have built the of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the , which I didn't command, nor did it come into my . Therefore behold, the days come", , "that it will no more be called 'Topheth' or 'The valley of the son of Hinnom', but 'The valley of Slaughter'; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. bodies of this people will be food for the birds of , and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the and the voice of the ; for the land will become a waste."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Jeremiah