¹Thus said the Lord, “Go, buy a potter’s earthen flask, and take 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. ³You 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, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle. ⁴Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind; ⁶therefore, behold, days are 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. ⁷And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to 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 beasts of the earth. ⁸And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; every one who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. ⁹And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’

¹⁰“Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men 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. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. ¹²Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses upon whose roofs incense has been burned to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’ ”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and 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, Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.”

Chapter 20

¹Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the Lord. ³On the morrow, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror on every side. ⁴For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. 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 slay them with the sword. ⁵Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the 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. ⁶And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity; to Babylon you shall go; and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.”

⁷O Lord, thou hast deceived me,

and I was deceived;

thou art stronger than I,

and thou hast prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all the day;

every one mocks me.

⁸For whenever I speak, I cry out,

I 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,”

there is in my heart as it were a burning fire

shut up in my bones,

and I am weary with holding it in,

and I cannot.

¹⁰For I hear many whispering.

Terror is on every side!

“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”

say all my familiar friends,

watching for my fall.

“Perhaps he will be deceived,

then we can overcome him,

and take our revenge on him.”

¹¹But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;

therefore my persecutors will stumble,

they will not overcome me.

They will be greatly shamed,

for they will not succeed.

Their eternal dishonor

will never be forgotten.

¹²O Lord of hosts, who triest the righteous,

who seest the heart and the mind,

let me see thy vengeance upon them,

for to thee have I committed my cause.

¹³Sing to the Lord;

praise the Lord!

For he has delivered the life of the needy

from the hand 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,

“A son is born to you,”

making him very glad.

¹⁶Let that man be like the cities

which 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 for ever great.

¹⁸Why did I come forth from the womb

to see toil and sorrow,

and spend my days in shame?

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