Jeremiah 19

¹ Then Yahweh said to Jeremiah, 'Go and buy a potter's earthenware jug. Take some of the people'selders and some of the senior priests with you.

² Go out towards the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, just outside the Gate of the Potsherds. There proclaim thewords I shall say to you.

³ You must say, "Kings of Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem! Listen to the word of Yahweh! YahwehSabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: I am about to bring such a disaster on this place that the ears of every onewho hears of it wil ring.

⁴ For they have abandoned me and have made this place unrecognisable, and offered incense here toother gods which neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew before. They have fil ed thisplace with the blood of the innocent;

⁵ for they have built high places for Baal to burn their sons as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing I neverordered, never mentioned, that had never entered my thoughts.

⁶ So now the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when people will no longer cal this place Topheth, orVal ey of Ben-Hinnom, but Val ey of Slaughter.

⁷ Because of this place, I shall empty Judah and Jerusalem of sound advice; I shall make them fall bythe sword before their enemies, by the hand of those determined to kil them; I shal give their corpses as food tothe birds of the sky and the animals of earth.

⁸ And I shal make this city an object of horror and derision; every passer-by will be appal ed at it andwhistle at the sight of al the wounds it has sustained.

⁹ I shal make them eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters: they wil eat one another during thesiege, in the shortage to which their enemies, and those determined to kil them, will reduce them."

¹⁰ 'You must break this jug in front of the men who are with you,

¹¹ and say to them, "Yahweh Sabaoth says this: I am going to break this people and this city just as onebreaks a potter's pot, so that it can never be mended again. "Topheth wil become a burial ground, for lack ofother burial space.

¹² That is how I shal treat this place, Yahweh declares, and its inhabitants, by making this city likeTopheth.

¹³ The houses of Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah, al the houses on the roofs of which theyoffered incense to the whole array of heaven and poured libations to other gods, wil be unclean, like this placeTopheth." '

¹⁴ Jeremiah then came back from Topheth where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy, and stood in thecourt of the Temple of Yahweh and said to al the people,

¹⁵ 'Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this, "Yes, on this city, and on all the towns belonging to it, Ishall bring all the disaster which I had decreed for it, since they have stubbornly refused to listen to my words." '