3. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4. Trust not in the lying words [of the false prophets who maintain that God will protect Jerusalem because His temple is there], saying, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
5. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly and truly execute justice between every man and his neighbor,
6. If you do not oppress the transient and the alien, the fatherless, and the widow or shed innocent blood [by oppression and by judicial murders] in [Jerusalem] or go after other gods to your own hurt,
7. Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers to dwell in forever.
8. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot benefit [so that you do not profit].
9. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
10. And [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free!–only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations?
11. Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes [a place of retreat for you between acts of violence]? Behold, I Myself have seen it, says the Lord.
12. But go now to My place which was in Shiloh [in Ephraim], where I set My Name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. [I Sam. 4:10-18.]
13. And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and [because] when I spoke to you persistently [even rising up early and speaking], you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,
14. Therefore will I do to this house (the temple), which is called by My Name and in which you trust, to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole posterity of Ephraim.
16. Therefore do not pray for this people [of Judah] or lift up a cry or entreaty for them or make intercession to Me, for I will not listen to or hear you.
17. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18. The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger!
19. Am I the One Whom they provoke to anger? says the Lord. Is it not themselves [whom they provoke], to their own confusion and vexation and to their own shame?
20. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.
21. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh [if you will. It will avail you nothing].