JeremiahChapter 19

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¹This is what the LORD says: "Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests with you. ²Go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, near the opening of the Potsherd Gate. Announce there the words I tell you. ³Say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring a terrible disaster on this place. The ears of everyone who hears about it will ring. ⁴This is because they have left me. They have made this a place for foreign gods. Here they have burned incense to other gods. Neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew these gods. They have filled this place with the blood of people who did nothing wrong. ⁵They have built high places for Baal. There they burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal. I never commanded this or spoke of it. It never even came into my mind. ⁶So look, the days are coming, says the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom. It will be called the Valley of Slaughter. ⁷In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword in front of their enemies. They will die by the hands of those who want to kill them. I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth. ⁸I will make this city an empty ruin and something to make fun of. All who pass by will be shocked. They will laugh at all her wounds. ⁹I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. They will eat one another's flesh. This will happen during the siege, when their enemies who want to kill them close them in and make them suffer.' ¹⁰Then break the jar while the men who came with you watch. ¹¹Tell them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will break this nation and this city like a potter's jar is broken. It can never be fixed again. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them. ¹²This is what I will do to this place and to the people who live here, says the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be made unclean like Topheth. These are all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the stars of the sky. There they poured out drink offerings to other gods." ¹⁴Then Jeremiah came back from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy. He stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD. He announced to all the people, ¹⁵"This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: 'Look, I am about to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I said would come. This is because they have been stubborn and would not listen to my words.'"