Jeremiah 7:18 (WEB)

Passage

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.

Nearby Context

Jeremiah 7:16 “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.

Jeremiah 7:17 Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

Jeremiah 7:18 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.

Jeremiah 7:19 Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

Jeremiah 7:20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “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.”

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "children", "gather", "wood", "fathers", "kindle", "fire", "women", and "knead". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "children" and "gather", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 17's "Don t you see what they do..." into verse 19's "Do they provoke me to anger says...", so "children" and "gather" belong inside that flow. In Jeremiah context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "children" and "gather" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.