Jeremiah 19
1 This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests with you.
2 Go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, at the entrance to the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words I tell you.
3 Say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: «I am about to bring such disaster on this place that everyone who hears of it will have their ears ringing.
4 For they have abandoned me and made this place foreign to me. They have burned incense here to other gods, whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
5 They built the shrines of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or spoke of, and that never entered my mind.
6 So days are coming, says the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 I will frustrate the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies and at the hands of those who seek their lives. I will give their corpses as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
8 I will make this city an object of horror and scorn. Everyone who passes by will be horrified and will scoff because of all its wounds.
9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. Each will eat the flesh of a neighbor during the siege and distress their enemies and those who seek their lives bring upon them.»’
10 Then break the jar in front of the men who go with you.
11 Tell them, ‘This is what the LORD of Hosts says: «This is how I will break this people and this city, like a potter’s vessel that cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there will be no room elsewhere for burial.
12 This is what I will do to this place and its inhabitants, says the LORD: I will make this city like Topheth.
13 The houses of Jerusalem and the palaces of the kings of Judah will become unclean like Topheth. All the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to the whole army of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods will be unclean.»’”
14 Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy. He stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and said to all the people:
15 “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city and all its towns every disaster I have spoken against it, because they have stiffened their necks and refused to hear my words.’”
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