²⁴“But they did not listen. They refused to pay any attention to me. Instead, they did what their stubborn and evil hearts wanted them to do. They went backward and not forward.

²⁵“Again and again I sent my servants the prophets to you. They came to you day after day. They prophesied from the time your people left Egypt until now.

²⁶“But the people did not listen. They refused to pay any attention to me. They were stubborn. They did more evil things than their people who lived before them.

²⁷“Jeremiah, when you tell them all of that, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not answer.

²⁸“So say to them, ‘You are a nation that has not obeyed the Lord your God. You did not pay attention when you were corrected. Truth has died out. You do not tell the truth anymore.’ ”

²⁹The Lord says to the people of Jerusalem, “Cut off your hair. Throw it away. Sing a song of sadness on the bare hilltops. I am very angry with you. I have turned my back on you. I have deserted you.

The Valley of Death

³⁰“The people of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes,” announces the Lord. “They have set up statues of their gods. They have worshiped them in the house where my Name is. They have made my house ‘unclean.’ I hate those statues. ³¹The people have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they worship other gods. And there they sacrifice their children in the fire. That is something I did not command. It did not even enter my mind.

³²“So watch out!” announces the Lord. “The days are coming when people will not call it Topheth anymore. And they will not call it the Valley of Ben Hinnom either. Instead, they will call it the Valley of Death. They will bury the dead bodies of some people in Topheth. But they will run out of room. ³³Then they will not be able to bury the bodies of other people there. So the bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the wild animals. And no one will scare them away.

³⁴“I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness. The voices of brides and grooms will not be heard anymore. There will not be any sounds of joy in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. The land will become a desert.

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