< Jeremiah 19 >

1 This is another message that Yahweh gave [to me]: “Go and buy a clay jar from a man who makes them. Then take with you some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests.
Thus said YHWH: “Go, and you have acquired a potter’s earthen vessel, and from [the] elderly of the people, and from [the] elderly of the priests,
2 Go out [of the city] past the Gate of Broken Pots, to the place [overlooking the dump for broken pottery in] the Ben-Hinnom Valley. Then give them a message.
and you have gone forth to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that [is] at the opening of the gate of the pottery, and have proclaimed there the words that I speak to you,
3 Say to them, ‘[This message is for] you kings of Judah and [other] people of Jerusalem. Listen to what Yahweh is saying! The Commander of the armies of angels says that he will cause there to be a terrible disaster in [Jerusalem]. Those who hear about it will be stunned/shocked [IDM].
and have said, Hear a word of YHWH, you kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem!” Thus said YHWH of Hosts, God of Israel: “Behold, I am bringing in evil on this place, at which the ears of everyone who is hearing it tingles,
4 [That will happen] because [you Israeli] people have stopped worshiping me, and have caused this place to be a place where [you worship] foreign gods. You burn sacrifices to gods that neither you nor your ancestors nor [even] the kings of Judah ever heard about. And you have filled this place with the blood of innocent people [whom you have killed].
because that they have forsaken Me, and make known this place, and make incense in it to other gods, that they did not know, they and their fathers, and the kings of Judah, and they have filled this place [with] innocent blood,
5 You have built shrines to honor [your god] Baal, and at those shrines you have [killed] your own children and offered them to be sacrifices to Baal. I never commanded you to do that, I never spoke about doing that, I never even thought about anyone doing that.
and have built the high places of Ba‘al to burn their sons with fire, burnt-offerings to Ba‘al, that I did not command, nor spoke of, nor did it come up on My heart.
6 So, beware, [because I, ] Yahweh, say that there will be a time when this garbage dump will no longer be called Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley; it will be called Slaughter Valley.
Therefore, behold, days are coming,” a declaration of YHWH, “and this place is no longer called The Tophet and Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but Valley of the Slaughter.
7 In this place I will ruin the plans of [you people who live in] Jerusalem and in [other places in] Judah. I will allow your enemies who want to kill you to kill [many of] you with their swords. [Then] I will allow your corpses to remain on the ground to be food for vultures and wild animals.
And I have made void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and have caused them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those seeking their life, and I have given their carcass for food to the bird of the heavens, and to the beast of the earth,
8 I will [completely destroy] Jerusalem and cause it to become a heap of ruins that people will despise. All the people who pass by will be appalled, and they will be shocked when they see that the city has been destroyed.
and I have made this city for a desolation, and for a hissing, everyone passing by it is astonished, and hisses for all its plagues.
9 I will enable your enemies who want to kill you to surround the city for a long time. [Then the food will be all gone, and you people will be extremely hungry, with the result that] you people in the city will eat the flesh of your own children and your neighbors’ children.’
And I have caused them to eat the flesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and they each eat the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the constriction with which their enemies constrict them, and those seeking their life.”
10 [Jeremiah, after you tell that to them], while the people who are with you are watching, smash the jar [that you brought].
“And you have broken the bottle before the eyes of the men who are going with you,
11 Then say to them, ‘This is what the Commander of the armies of angels says: “Just like this jar has been smashed and cannot be repaired, I will smash this city of Jerusalem and other places in Judah. You will bury some of your corpses here in this dump, until there is no more space to bury any more corpses.
and have said to them, Thus said YHWH of Hosts: Thus I break this people and this city, as one breaks the potter’s vessel, that is not able to be repaired again, and in Tophet they bury—without place to bury;
12 That is what I will do to this city and to you people who live here. I will cause this city to be desecrated, like [King Josiah caused Topheth to be] a place that was unfit for people to worship me there.
so I do to this place—a declaration of YHWH—and to its inhabitants, so as to make this city as Tophet;
13 The houses in Jerusalem and the palaces of the kings of Judah will be desecrated like this place will be. All the houses where you burned incense on the rooftops to honor the stars [that you worshiped], and where you poured out wine [to be an offering] to your gods, will become (desecrated/unacceptable places for people to worship me).”’”
and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, have been as the place of Tophet—defiled, even all the houses on whose roofs they have made incense to all the host of the heavens, so as to pour out oblations to other gods.”
14 Then I returned from the garbage dump where Yahweh had sent me to tell them that message. Then I stood in the courtyard of Yahweh’s temple and said this to all the people [who were there]:
And Jeremiah comes in from Tophet, to where YHWH had sent him to prophesy, and he stands in the court of the house of YHWH, and he says to all the people:
15 “This is what the Commander of the armies of angels says: ‘I will cause there to be a disaster in this city and in the villages around it like I promised, because you people have stubbornly [IDM] refused to pay attention to what I said to you.’”
“Thus said YHWH of Hosts, God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing to this city, and on all its cities, all the calamity that I have spoken against it, for they have hardened their neck to not hear My words!”

< Jeremiah 19 >