1 Thus said Yahweh, Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and
take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;
2 and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry
of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you;
3 and say, Hear you the word of Yahweh, kings of Judah, and
inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears shall
tingle. 4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place,
and have burned incense in it to other gods, that they didn’t know, they and
their fathers and the kings of Judah; and have filled this place with the
blood of innocents, 5 and have built the high places of Baal, to burn
their sons in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal; which I didn’t command,
nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind: 6 therefore, behold, the days
come, says Yahweh, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor The
valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter. 7 I will make
void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them
to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek
their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the
sky, and for the animals of the earth. 8 I will make this city an
astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished
and hiss because of all the plagues of it. 9 I will cause them to eat the
flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat
everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with
which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them.
10 Then shall you break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with
you, 11 and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Even so will I
break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t
be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place
to bury. 12 Thus will I do to this place, says Yahweh, and to the
inhabitants of it, even making this city as Topheth: 13 and the houses of
Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be
as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned
incense to all the army of the sky, and have poured out drink offerings to
other gods. 14 Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him
to prophesy; and he stood in the court of Yahweh’s house, and said to all the
people: 15 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Behold, I will
bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced
against it; because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear
my words.
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