If you read all of Jeremiah in context, you see that it’s giving an explanation for why God allowed the first Temple to be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah goes to the Temple 39 years before it is going to be destroyed by the Babylonian invasion. Jeremiah gives a speech in the courtyard saying that people have been going out and sinning (murder, adultery, theft, etc) and then they come to the Temple and offer a sacrifice and expect that to forgive their sins, but they don’t actually repent or change their behavior. They treat it as transactional. This is when Jeremiah says, “have you made my house a safe haven for bandits?” (Jer. 7:9-11). In Jeremiah, that line is addressed to the people of Israel as a whole, not to any Temple authorities. He isn’t saying the Temple is corrupt, he is saying that people use the Temple cynically to wash themselves of sins they aren’t really sorry about. Jeremiah is telling them that unless they actually repent their sins in their hearts, God will not accept their sacrifices and they will lose the protection of the Temple.
This is, indeed what comes to pass, but Jeremiah is saying, “Don’t worry about it. God will eventually restore the Houses of Judah and Israel and this time the law will be on their hearts because their faith will be so much stronger. Nobody will doubt God anymore. people will be filled with the Holy Spirit and be good because they are internally moved to do so, not because they are commanded to.
Pay attention to the fact that this promise is specifically given only to Jews – only to “Israel and Judah.” It was never read as universal to humanity. It was a promise to Jewish people who felt culturally and spiritually unmoored after the loss of the Temple. The book of Jeremiah is not addressed to all humanity, it’s meant (as all Jewish apocalyptic literature) to comfort the Jewish people in a time of crisis.
I call it “apocalyptic” in the sense it follows the literary form of Jewish apocalypse which interprets a present crisis as a necessary prelude to a glorious vindication/restoration/Golden Age. It’s not meant to mean (and Jewish people never took it to mean) that the Torah was literally going to be replaced by something else. This is highly allegorical language and predicts a sort of moral purification of the Jewish people. The exile was a means to an end, like a boot camp. A national attitude adjustment.
It was definitely never understood as Messianic before Christianity or as referring any particular individual.
You have to read Jeremiah in its broader context to understand the Jewish perspective.
He’s prophesizing as Jews are being led in chains to Babylon. His message before and after the “brit chadash” is that God will bring Jews back and rebuild the destroyed city.
And it happens seventy years later.
Seeing what happened to the northern tribes, being taken and scattered by Sancherrib, must have been cause for great distress. Jeremiah is giving over a message of hope. You will return and God will be visible.
The only requirement was that we not worship anyone else.