Yirmiyahu - Chapter 19

1. So said the Lord: Go and buy a potter's earthen jug, and [take] along some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

2. And you shall go out to the Ben- Hinnom Valley which is at the entrance of the Harsith Gate, and you shall call there the words that I will speak to you.

3. And you shall say; Hearken to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; so said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold I am bringing evil upon this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.

4. Because they forsook Me and they estranged this place and burnt incense therein to other gods, which they had not known, they, their forefathers, and the kings of Judah, and they filled this place with the blood of innocent people.

5. And they built the high places of Baal to burn their children with fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command, neither did I speak nor did it enter My mind.

6. Therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter.

7. And I will frustrate the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will hurl them down by the sword before their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses for food to the fowl of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth.

8. And I will make this city into a waste and a hissing; everyone who passes by it shall be astonished and hiss concerning all her plagues.

9. And I will feed them the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each one will eat the flesh of his friend, in the siege and the straits that their enemies and those who seek their lives will inflict upon them.

10. And you shall break the jug before the eyes of the men who go with you.

11. And you shall say to them: so said the Lord of Hosts: so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks the potter's vessel, which can no longer be repaired, and in the Topheth they will bury without place to bury.

12. So will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, and to make this city like the Topheth.

13. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be like the place of the Topheth, the unclean ones, of all the houses on whose roofs they offered up incense to all the host of heaven and poured libations to other gods.

14. And Jeremiah came from the Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord and said to all the people.

15. So said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all her cities all this evil that I spoke concerning her, for they stiffened their necks not to hearken to My words.