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Jeremiah 7:1-34

Amend Your Ways at the Gate

Lyrics · Jeremiah

Amend Your Ways at the Gate

Jeremiah 7:1-34

Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Jeremiah collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Jeremiah
Collection
Jeremiah
Musical styles
Uncategorized
[Litany] At the gate the polished stones looked safe, Amend your ways before you cross this gate, Three times they named the temple and hid behind the phrase. A holy address cannot shelter a lie. But the widow was pressed and the stranger denied, Amend your ways before you cross this gate, Blood crossed the street while the altar stayed bright. A holy address cannot shelter a lie. [Verse 2] Shiloh is dust; let the old ruin speak, A house becomes a den when the strong rob the weak. Children carried wood to a fire never asked, False gods received what mercy should have guarded. [Refrain] Amend your ways before you cross this gate, A holy address cannot shelter a lie. [Bridge] No wedding song remains when the trumpet is done, No sacred wall can bargain with the Holy One. Hear at the gate before the gate is no more; Obedience is the key, not the name on the door. [Final Chorus] Amend your ways before you cross this gate, A holy address cannot shelter a lie. Obedience is the key, not the name on the door.

Named in this songShiloh

About the passage

Jeremiah 7: The temple is not an alibi

At the temple gate, Jeremiah 7 dismantles the assumption that sacred space can serve as protection for unchanged conduct. Worshippers repeat “The temple of the LORD,” but the Book of Jeremiah answers with justice between neighbors, protection of the vulnerable, rejection of innocent blood, and faithfulness to God. Shiloh supplies the precedent proving that a place genuinely associated with God’s name is not therefore immune. The accusation then widens from temple confidence to household idolatry, rejected intercession, and sacrifice detached from the central command to obey God’s voice. Jeremiah is told to speak even though the people will not answer, separating the prophet’s obligation from his audience’s response. The chapter ends at Tophet, where children have been burned and where judgment will produce a valley of slaughter. Even the sounds of weddings disappear as the land becomes desolate.

Study Jeremiah 7 in depth