Jeremiah — Chapter 19

Thus said GOD: Go buy a jug of potter’s ware. And [take] some of the elders of the people and the priests,

and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom—at the entrance of the Harsith Gateaat the entrance of the Harsith Gate In contrast to others “by way of the Potsherd Gate”; meaning of Heb. uncertain.—and proclaim there the words that I will speak to you.

Say: “Hear the word of GOD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus said GOD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of all who hear about it will tingle.

For they and their ancestors and the kings of Judah have forsaken Me, and have made this place alien [to Me]; they have sacrificed in it to other gods whom they have not experienced,bexperienced See note at Deut. 11.28. and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

They have built shrines to Baal, to put their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal—which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind.

Assuredly, a time is coming—declares GOD—when this place shall no longer be called Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Valley of Slaughter.

“And I will frustratecfrustrate Lit. “empty,” Heb. u-baqqothi, a play on baqbuq, “jug” in v. 1. the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those who seek their lives; and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

And I will make this city an object of horror and hissing;dhissing See note at 18.16. everyone who passes by it will be appalled and will hiss over all its wounds.

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall devour one another’s flesh—because of the desperate straits to which they will be reduced by their enemies, who seek their life.”

Then you shall smash the jug in the sight of those who go with you,

and say to them: “Thus said GOD of Hosts: So will I smash this people and this city, as one smashes a potter’s vessel, which can never be mended. And they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left for burying.

That is what I will do to this place and its inhabitants—declares GOD. I will make this city like Topheth:

the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be impure, like that place Topheth—all the houses on the roofs of which offerings were made to the whole host of heaven and libations were poured out to other gods.”

When Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where GOD had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the court of the House of GOD and said to all the people:

“Thus said GOD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring upon this city and upon all its villages all the disaster that I have decreed against it, for they have stiffened their necks and refused to heed My words.”