Jeremiah 19

1Thus says Yahweh: Go buy an earthenware bottle from a potter, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

2And go out to the valley of Ben Hinnom, which is at the entrance to the east gate, and declare there the words that I will speak to you.

3And say: “Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah and dwellers in Jerusalem. Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing calamity on this place, such that whoever hears it will have his ears tingle.”

4Because they have forsaken me, have alienated this place, and have offered incense in it to other gods whom they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah did not know, and have filled this place with innocent blood.

5They have built high places for Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I neither commanded nor spoke, nor did it arise in my heart.

6Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares Yahweh, that this place will no longer be called Tophet, nor the valley of Ben-Hinnom, but rather the valley of slaughter.

7I will frustrate the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those seeking their lives, and give their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

8I will make this city a desolation and a hissing; everyone passing over it will be appalled and hiss at all its plagues.

9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each will eat his fellow's flesh in the siege and distress their enemies and those seeking their lives bring on them.

10Then you shall break the bottle before the eyes of the men who go with you.

11You shall say to them: Thus says Yahweh of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, just as one breaks a potter's vessel that cannot be mended again; and in Topheth they will bury, for lack of any place to bury.

12So I will do to this place, says Yahweh, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth.

13The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become like the place of Tophet, all the defiled houses on whose roofs they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.

14Jeremiah came from Tophet, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy there, stood in the court of Yahweh's house, and said to all the people:

15Thus says Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel: "Look, I will bring upon this city and all its towns every calamity that I have announced against it, because they have stiffened their neck so as not to hear my words."