Evil in the Land

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 ^c“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^dAmend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly ^eexecute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods ^fto your own harm, 7 ^gthen I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is ^hcalled by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a ⁱden of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, ^jwhere I made my name dwell at first, and see ^kwhat I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you ^lpersistently you did not listen, and ^mwhen I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore ⁿI will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

16 “As for you, ^odo not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the ^pcities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make ^qcakes for the ^rqueen of heaven. And they pour out ^sdrink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. 19 Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? 20 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be ^tpoured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, ^uand eat the flesh. 22 For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, ^vI did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and ^wI will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, ^xthat it may be well with you.’ 24 But ^ythey did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the ^zstubbornness of their evil hearts, and went ^abackward and not forward. 25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 ^bYet ^cthey did not listen to me or incline their ear, but ^dstiffened their neck. ^eThey did worse than their fathers.

27 “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

34 And I will ⁿsilence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem ^othe voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.

Evil in the Land

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

Greeting

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

The Thessalonians’ Faith and Example

2 ^aWe give thanks to God always for all of you, ^bconstantly¹ mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your ^cwork of ^dfaith and labor of ^elove and steadfastness of ^fhope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, ^gbrothers² loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also ^hin power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. ⁱYou know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you ^jbecame imitators of us and of the Lord, for ^kyou received the word in much affliction, with the ^ljoy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For not only has ^mthe word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but ⁿyour ^ofaith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of ^preception we had among you, and how you ^qturned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to ^rwait for his Son ^sfrom heaven, whom ^the raised from the dead, Jesus who ^udelivers us from the ^vwrath to come.