Lord, you have left your people, the family of Jacob, because they have become filled with wrong ideas from people in the East. They try to tell the future like the Philistines, and they have completely accepted those foreign ideas.
“What is my beloved Judah doing in my Temple when she makes many evil plans? Do you think animal sacrifices will stop your punishment? When you do your evil, then you are happy.”
Lord, have you completely rejected the nation of Judah? Do you hate Jerusalem? Why have you hurt us so badly that we cannot be made well again? We hoped for peace, but nothing good has come. We looked for a time of healing, but only terror came.
You will lose the land I gave you, and it is your own fault. I will let your enemies take you as their slaves to a land you have never known. This is because you have made my anger burn like a hot fire, and it will burn forever.”
“Suppose the people of Judah, a prophet, or a priest asks you: ‘Jeremiah, what is the message from the Lord?’ You will answer them and say, ‘You are a heavy load to the Lord, and I will throw you down, says the Lord.’
So I will destroy the place where I have chosen to be worshiped in Jerusalem. You trust in that place, which I gave to you and your ancestors, but I will destroy it just as I destroyed Shiloh.
“ ‘Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them.
‘Say to the people of Israel, This is what the Lord God says: I am going to dishonor my Temple. You think it gives you strength. You are proud of it, and you look at it with love and tenderness. But your sons and daughters that you left behind in Jerusalem will fall dead by the sword.
“The Israelites were very wicked in Gilgal, so I have hated them there. Because of the sinful things they have done, I will force them to leave my land. I will no longer love them; their leaders have turned against me.
I will gather all the nations together and bring them down into the Valley Where the Lord Judges. There I will judge them, because those nations scattered my own people Israel and forced them to live in other nations. They divided up my land
Moses said this about the people of Benjamin: “The Lord’s loved ones will lie down in safety, because he protects them all day long. The ones he loves rest with him.”