Jeremiah 7:17

Lexham English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁶ "And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸ The children are gathering wood, and the fathers are kindling the fire, and the women are kneading dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods for the sake of provoking me to anger. ¹⁹ Are they provoking me to anger? " declares Yahweh, "Is it not themselves they hurt, for the sake of the shame of their faces?" ²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, "Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on the humankind, and on the animal, and on the tree of the field, and on the fruit of the ground, and it will not be extinguished."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Jeremiah 6:27, Ezekiel 8:6-18, Ezekiel 14:23

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 21:29 - Seest thou Jeremiah 44:9 - the wickedness of your

Cross-References

Genesis 7:4
For within seven days I will send rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. And I will blot out all the living creatures that I have made from upon the face of the ground."

Genesis 7:12
And the rain came upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Seest thou not what they do in the cities Judah,.... Not in one city only, but in all of and particularly the chief of them; as follows:

and in the streets of Jerusalem? these words, with what is said next, show the reason why the prophet was forbid to pray for this people, and the Lord was so provoked with them as to cast them out of his sight; and he appeals to the prophet, and to what he saw, or which he might see; for what was done was done not in secret, but openly, in the very streets of the city; by which he might be sufficiently convinced it was but just with God to do what he determined to do with them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The proof of the hopeless immorality of the people is this, that they worship pagan deities

(1) generally in the cities of Judah, and not in the capital only; and

(2) publicly in the streets of Jerusalem. Such public idolatry could have been practiced only in the reign of a king like Jehoiakim.