16Thus says the Lord,

“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,

Where the good way is, and walk in it;

And you will find rest for your souls.

But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

17And I set watchmen over you, saying,

‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’

But they said, ‘We will not listen.’

18Therefore hear, O nations,

And know, O congregation, what is among them.

19Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people,

The fruit of their plans,

Because they have not listened to My words,

And as for My law, they have rejected it also.

20For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba

And the sweet cane from a distant land?

Your burnt offerings are not acceptable

And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.”

21Therefore, thus says the Lord,

“Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people.

And they will stumble against them,

Fathers and sons together;

Neighbor and friend will perish.”

The Enemy from the North

22Thus says the Lord,

“Behold, a people is coming from the north land,

And a great nation will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth.

23They seize bow and spear;

They are cruel and have no mercy;

Their voice roars like the sea,

And they ride on horses,

Arrayed as a man for the battle

Against you, O daughter of Zion!”

24We have heard the report of it;

Our hands are limp.

Anguish has seized us,

Pain as of a woman in childbirth.

25Do not go out into the field

And do not walk on the road,

For the enemy has a sword,

Terror is on every side.

26O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth

And roll in ashes;

Mourn as for an only son,

A lamentation most bitter.

For suddenly the destroyer

Will come upon us.

27“I have made you an assayer and a tester among My people,

That you may know and assay their way.”

28All of them are stubbornly rebellious,

Going about as a talebearer.

They are bronze and iron;

They, all of them, are corrupt.

29The bellows blow fiercely,

The lead is consumed by the fire;

In vain the refining goes on,

But the wicked are not separated.

30They call them rejected silver,

Because the Lord has rejected them.

Message at the Temple Gate

1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord!’ ” 3Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, 6if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, 7then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

8“Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? 11Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.

12“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you but you did not answer, 14therefore, I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.

16“As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you. 17Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me. 19Do they spite Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?” 20Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

21Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 22For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. 25Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. 26Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.

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

29Cut off your hair and cast it away,

And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;

For the Lord has rejected and forsaken

The generation of His wrath.’

30For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the Lord, “they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 31They 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 into My mind.

32“Therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. 33The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34Then I will make to 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.

The Sin and Treachery of Judah

1“At that time,” declares the Lord, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. 2They will spread them out to the sun, the moon and to all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served, and which they have gone after and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or buried; they will be as dung on the face of the ground. 3And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places to which I have driven them,” declares the Lord of hosts.

4“You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord,

“Do men fall and not get up again?

Does one turn away and not repent?

5Why then has this people, Jerusalem,

Turned away in continual apostasy?

They hold fast to deceit,

They refuse to return.

6I have listened and heard,

They have spoken what is not right;

No man repented of his wickedness,

Saying, ‘What have I done?’

Everyone turned to his course,

Like a horse charging into the battle.

7Even the stork in the sky

Knows her seasons;

And the turtledove and the swift and the thrush

Observe the time of their migration;

But My people do not know

The ordinance of the Lord.

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

16Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

20If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22(which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

PSALM 78

God’s Guidance of His People in Spite of Their Unfaithfulness.

A Maskil of Asaph.

1Listen, O my people, to my instruction;

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will utter dark sayings of old,

3Which we have heard and known,

And our fathers have told us.

4We will not conceal them from their children,

But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,

And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.

5For He established a testimony in Jacob

And appointed a law in Israel,

Which He commanded our fathers

That they should teach them to their children,

6That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born,

That they may arise and tell them to their children,

7That they should put their confidence in God

And not forget the works of God,

But keep His commandments,

8And not be like their fathers,

A stubborn and rebellious generation,

A generation that did not prepare its heart

And whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows,

Yet they turned back in the day of battle.

10They did not keep the covenant of God

And refused to walk in His law;

11They forgot His deeds

And His miracles that He had shown them.

12He wrought wonders before their fathers

In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

13He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,

And He made the waters stand up like a heap.

14Then He led them with the cloud by day

And all the night with a light of fire.

15He split the rocks in the wilderness

And gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths.

16He brought forth streams also from the rock

And caused waters to run down like rivers.

17Yet they still continued to sin against Him,

To rebel against the Most High in the desert.

18And in their heart they put God to the test

By asking food according to their desire.

19Then they spoke against God;

They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

20Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out,

And streams were overflowing;

Can He give bread also?

Will He provide meat for His people?”

21Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath;

And a fire was kindled against Jacob

And anger also mounted against Israel,

22Because they did not believe in God

And did not trust in His salvation.

23Yet He commanded the clouds above

And opened the doors of heaven;

24He rained down manna upon them to eat

And gave them food from heaven.

25Man did eat the bread of angels;

He sent them food in abundance.

26He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens

And by His power He directed the south wind.

27When He rained meat upon them like the dust,

Even winged fowl like the sand of the seas,

28Then He let them fall in the midst of their camp,

Round about their dwellings.

29So they ate and were well filled,

And their desire He gave to them.

30Before they had satisfied their desire,

While their food was in their mouths,

31The anger of God rose against them

And killed some of their stoutest ones,

And subdued the choice men of Israel.

26He kisses the lips

Who gives a right answer.