In Jer. 26.17-19 is an account of an earlier prophecy during the reign of Hezekiah where Micah of Moresheth said the Jewish Temple Mount would be covered by over-grown thickets of vegetation.
Why would this happen to the place where the people’s sins could be forgiven (or at least illustrated by animal sacrifices which foreshadowed Christ’s love toward His people)? It was because, mostly, the sacrifices were for folks that were not truely repentant. They wanted to continue their sin and still have it forgiven. In Jeremiah’s and Micah’s day people were idolatrous and committed murder by sacrificing their children to demon-inspired idols. Also, the society in general was characterized by adultery (see Ezek. 16 as representative and its promise of future redemption in the New Covenant).
Rabbinical Jews today clamour for the temple to be rebuilt. Afterall, they have nothing or no one in their system by which their sins can be forgiven since they don’t accept Jesus as Messiah. Jesus was God’s mystery (Col. 2.2) who both fulfilled the Law and the temple illustrations by entering the holy places in heaven with His own blood providing propitiation for those who obey Him.
The First and Second Temples of the Jews was destroyed because those places had become defiled through the people’s sins in which they continued. In fact, the Aaronic Priesthood, the animal sacrifices, and the temple’s layout all spoke to a greater reality in heaven since Moses followed the pattern shown him on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 25.40). In the Old Covenant the animal sacrifices didn’t atone for sins but, instead, the sins were unpunished as a sort of “credit” for those who were known by God:
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— (Rom. 3.25 NIV).
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