Jeremiah 7:16-20
Persistent rebellion against God eventually reaches a point where judgment is no longer delayed.
16 “Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
17 Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”
20 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”
Persistent rebellion against God eventually reaches a point where judgment is no longer delayed.
To declare that Judah’s persistent idolatry has reached such a level that the LORD instructs Jeremiah not to intercede for the people, because their rebellion has provoked divine wrath that will soon be poured out.
This section follows the exposure of temple hypocrisy in Jeremiah 7:8–15. While the earlier passage exposed false confidence in the temple, these verses reveal that the people simultaneously practiced widespread idolatry.
Jeremiah exposes widespread idolatry in Judah during the final decades before the Babylonian exile.
The Temple Sermon: Do Not Trust in Deceptive Words
The LORD rejects Judah's false temple security because worship without obedience, justice, truth, and exclusive loyalty turns sacred space into a hiding place for rebellion.