הברית

(1) The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD: (2) Stand at the gate of the House of the LORD, and there proclaim this word: Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD! (3) Thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place. (4) Don’t put your trust in illusions and say, “The Temple of the LORD, the Temple of the LORD, the Temple of the LORD are these [buildings].” (5) No, if you really mend your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another; (6) if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place; if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt— (7) then only will I let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for all time. (8) See, you are relying on illusions that are of no avail. (9) Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal, and follow other gods whom you have not experienced, (10) and then come and stand before Me in this House which bears My name and say, “We are safe”?—[Safe] to do all these abhorrent things! (11) Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves? As for Me, I have been watching—declares the LORD. (12) Just go to My place at Shiloh, where I had established My name formerly, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. (13) And now, because you do all these things—declares the LORD—and though I spoke to you persistently, you would not listen; and though I called to you, you would not respond— (14) therefore I will do to the House which bears My name, on which you rely, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, just what I did to Shiloh. (15) And I will cast you out of My presence as I cast out your brothers, the whole brood of Ephraim. (16) As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry of prayer on their behalf, do not plead with Me; for I will not listen to you. (17) Don’t you see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? (18) The children gather sticks, the fathers build the fire, and the mothers knead dough, to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and they pour libations to other gods, to vex Me. (19) Is it Me they are vexing?—says the LORD. It is rather themselves, to their own disgrace. (20) Assuredly, thus said the Lord GOD: My wrath and My fury will be poured out upon this place, on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the soil. It shall burn, with none to quench it. (21) Thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat! (22) For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. (23) But this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you. (24) Yet they did not listen or give ear; they followed their own counsels, the willfulness of their evil hearts. They have gone backward, not forward, (25) from the day your fathers left the land of Egypt until today. And though I kept sending all My servants, the prophets, to them daily and persistently, (26) they would not listen to Me or give ear. They stiffened their necks, they acted worse than their fathers. (27) You shall say all these things to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall call to them, but they will not respond to you. (28) Then say to them: This is the nation that would not obey the LORD their God, that would not accept rebuke. Faithfulness has perished, vanished from their mouths. (29) Shear your locks and cast them away, Take up a lament on the heights, For the LORD has spurned and cast off The brood that provoked His wrath. (30) For the people of Judah have done what displeases Me—declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the House which is called by My name, and they have defiled it. (31) And they have built the shrines of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire—which I never commanded, which never came to My mind. (32) Assuredly, a time is coming—declares the LORD—when men shall no longer speak of Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but of the Valley of Slaughter; and they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left. (33) The carcasses of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them off. (34) And I will silence in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride. For the whole land shall fall to ruin.

since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is just and right, in order that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.”

Then Laban spoke up and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks; all that you see is mine. Yet what can I do now about my daughters or the children they have borne? Come, then, let us make a pact, you and I, that there may be a witness between you and me.” Thereupon Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a mound; and they partook of a meal there by the mound. Laban named it Yegar-sahadutha, but Jacob named it Gal-ed. And Laban declared, “This mound is a witness between you and me this day.” That is why it was named Gal-ed; and [it was called] Mizpah, because he said, “May the LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of sight of each other. If you ill-treat my daughters or take other wives besides my daughters—though no one else be about, remember, God Himself will be witness between you and me.”

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the LORD and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that the LORD has commanded we will do!” Moses then wrote down all the commands of the LORD. Early in the morning, he set up an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He designated some young men among the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as offerings of well-being to the LORD. Moses took one part of the blood and put it in basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will faithfully do!” Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD now makes with you concerning all these commands.”

(10) And all that generation were likewise gathered to their fathers. Another generation arose after them, which had not experienced [the deliverance of] the LORD or the deeds that He had wrought for Israel. (11) And the Israelites did what was offensive to the LORD. They worshiped the Baalim (12) and forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them; they provoked the LORD. (13) They forsook the LORD and worshiped Baal and the Ashtaroth. (14) Then the LORD was incensed at Israel, and He handed them over to foes who plundered them. He surrendered them to their enemies on all sides, and they could no longer hold their own against their enemies. (15) In all their campaigns, the hand of the LORD was against them to their undoing, as the LORD had declared and as the LORD had sworn to them; and they were in great distress. (16) Then the LORD raised up chieftains who delivered them from those who plundered them. (17) But they did not heed their chieftains either; they went astray after other gods and bowed down to them. They were quick to turn aside from the way their fathers had followed in obedience to the commandments of the LORD; they did not do right. (18) When the LORD raised up chieftains for them, the LORD would be with the chieftain and would save them from their enemies during the chieftain’s lifetime; for the LORD would be moved to pity by their moanings because of those who oppressed and crushed them. (19) But when the chieftain died, they would again act basely, even more than the preceding generation—following other gods, worshiping them, and bowing down to them; they omitted none of their practices and stubborn ways.

The LORD will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for misfortune, in accordance with all the sanctions of the covenant recorded in this book of Teaching.