23. But I did tell them this, ‘Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Live the way I told you to live so that things will go well for you.’
24. But they didn’t obey me or pay attention to me. They followed their own plans and their stubborn, evil ways. They went backward and not forward.
25. From the time that your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have sent all my servants the prophets to you again and again.
26. But you didn’t obey me or pay attention to me. You became impossible to deal with, and you were worse than your ancestors.
27. “Jeremiah, you will say all these things to them, but they will not obey you. You will call to them, but they will not respond to you.
28. You will say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the Lord their God. They did not accept discipline. Truth has disappeared and vanished from their lips.’
29. “Cut off your hair and throw it away. Sing a song of mourning on the bare hills, because in his anger the Lord has rejected and abandoned the people of this generation.
30. The people of Judah have done what I consider evil,” declares the Lord. “They set up their detestable idols in the house that is called by my name. They have made it unclean.
31. They have built worship sites at Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom in order to burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices. I did not ask for this. It never entered my mind.