Jeremiah 19–20

The Broken Earthenware Jug

¹⁹Thus said the Lord: Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jug. Take with you^t some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, ²and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you.^{* 3}You shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.^{* 4}Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent^{* 5}and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind,^{* 6}therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom but the valley of Slaughter.^{* 7}And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem and will make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth.^{* 8}And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters.^{* 9}And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.^*

¹⁰Then you shall break the jug in the sight of those who go with you ¹¹and shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended. In Topheth they shall bury until there is no more room to bury.^{* 12}Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. ¹³And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Topheth—all the houses upon whose roofs offerings have been made to the whole host of heaven and libations have been poured out to other gods.^*

¹⁴When Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people:^{* 15}Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am now bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks, refusing to hear my words.^*

Jeremiah Persecuted by Pashhur

²⁰Now the priest Pashhur son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.^{* 2}Then Pashhur struck the prophet Jeremiah and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the Lord.^{* 3}The next morning when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord has named you not Pashhur but ‘Terror-all-around.’ ⁴For thus says the Lord: I am making you a terror to yourself and to all your friends, and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon; he shall carry them captive to Babylon and shall kill them with the sword.^{* 5}I will give all the wealth of this city, all its gains, all its prized belongings, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon.^{* 6}And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, shall go into captivity, and to Babylon you shall go; there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.”^*

Jeremiah Denounces His Persecutors

⁷O Lord, you have enticed me,

and I was enticed;

you have overpowered me,

and you have prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all day long;

everyone mocks me.^*

⁸For whenever I speak, I must cry out;

I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”

For the word of the Lord has become for me

a reproach and derision all day long.^*

⁹If I say, “I will not mention him

or speak any more in his name,”

then within me there is something like a burning fire

shut up in my bones;

I am weary with holding it in,

and I cannot.^*

¹⁰For I hear many whispering:

“Terror is all around!

Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”

All my close friends

are watching for me to stumble.

“Perhaps he can be enticed,

and we can prevail against him

and take our revenge on him.”^*

¹¹But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior;

therefore my persecutors will stumble,

and they will not prevail.

They will be greatly shamed,

for they will not succeed.

Their eternal dishonor

will never be forgotten.^*

¹²O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous;

you see the heart and the mind;

let me see your retribution upon them,

for to you I have committed my cause.^*

¹³Sing to the Lord;

praise the Lord!

For he has delivered the life of the needy

from the hands of evildoers.^*

¹⁴Cursed be the day

on which I was born!

The day when my mother bore me,

let it not be blessed!^*

¹⁵Cursed be the man

who brought the news to my father, saying,

“A child is born to you, a son,”

making him very glad.^*

¹⁶Let that man be like the cities

that the Lord overthrew without pity;

let him hear a cry in the morning

and an alarm at noon,^*

¹⁷because he did not kill me in the womb;

so my mother would have been my grave

and her womb forever pregnant.^*

¹⁸Why did I come forth from the womb

to see toil and sorrow

and spend my days in shame?^*