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Tanach: Jeremiah (Yermiyah): Jeremiah (Yermiyah) Chapter 7

Book of AmosHebrew BibleTanakh

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This is Jeremiah 7:1–34 in Biblical Hebrew, presented in parallel with its transliteration — a passage traditionally known as Jeremiah's Temple Sermon, belonging to the Hebrew prophetic literature tradition. The text records a divine commission to Jeremiah to stand at the Temple gate and deliver an ultimatum to the people of Judah: genuine ethical reform (justice between neighbors, protection of the vulnerable, rejection of idolatry) is the only basis for continued habitation in the land — not the mere fact of possessing the Temple. A distinctive and pointed claim runs through the passage: the people are treating the Temple as a "den of robbers," using ritual attendance as cover for ongoing moral violations, and God explicitly rejects this logic by invoking the destruction of Shiloh as a historical precedent for what awaits Jerusalem. The text also makes the theologically striking assertion that the sacrificial system was never God's primary command at the Exodus — obedience was — and that child sacrifice in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom is something God never commanded and "never entered his mind." The passage closes with an announcement of total desolation: silence where there was once wedding celebration, and the valley of Hinnom renamed the Valley of Slaughter.

Tanach: Jeremiah (Yermiyah): Jeremiah (Yermiyah) Chapter 7

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