Jeremiah 19

19This is what the Lord says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter.^l Take along some of the elders^m of the people and of the priests ²and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom,ⁿ near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, ³and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings^o of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster^p on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.^{q 4}For they have forsaken^r me and made this a place of foreign gods^s; they have burned incense^t in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.^{u 5}They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children^v in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.^{w 6}So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth^x or the Valley of Ben Hinnom,^y but the Valley of Slaughter.^z

⁷“ ‘In this place I will ruin^a the plans^a of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies,^b at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses^c as food^d to the birds and the wild animals. ⁸I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn;^e all who pass by will be appalled^f and will scoff because of all its wounds.^{g 9}I will make them eat^h the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemiesⁱ will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’

¹⁰“Then break the jar^j while those who go with you are watching, ¹¹and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash^k this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury^l the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. ¹²This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the Lord. I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses^m in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiledⁿ like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs^o to all the starry hosts^p and poured out drink offerings^q to other gods.’ ”

¹⁴Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court^r of the Lord’s temple and said to all the people, ¹⁵“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster^s I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked^t and would not listen^u to my words.’ ”