The Lesson of the Broken Jug

1This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a potter’s clay jug. Take alonga some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests. 2Go out to the Valley of Hinnomb at the entrance to the Potsherd Gate, and there proclaim the words that I’m telling you.

3“You are to say, ‘Hear this message from the LORD, you kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem!

“‘This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: “I’m about to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of all who hear about it tingle. 4For they have forsaken me and have treated this place as foreign. In it they have burned incense to other gods that neither they, their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah knew. They have also filled this place with the blood of innocent people. 5They built the high placesc for Baal to burn their children in the fire as a burnt offering to Baal—something I didn’t command, didn’t say, nor did it ever enter my mind!

6“‘“Therefore, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of Hinnom, but rather the Valley of Slaughter. 7I’ll shatterd the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I’ll make them fall by the sword before their enemies and at the hands of those seeking their lives. I’ll give their dead bodies as food to the birds of the sky and to the animals of the land. 8I’ll make this city into a desolate place and an object of scorn.e All who pass by it will be astonished and will scofff because of all its wounds. 9I’ll cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters,g and people will eat the flesh of their neighbors in the siege and in the distress to which their enemies and those seeking their lives will subject them.”’”

10“Then you are to break the jug in front of the men who have come with you, 11and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: “In this same way I’ll break this people and this city, just as someone breaks a potter’s vessel which he then cannot put back together again. They’ll bury corpsesh in Topheth until there is no more room to bury anyone.i 12This is what I’ll do to this place and its residents,” declares the LORD, “making this city like Topheth. 13The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be polluted like Topheth, as will be all the houses on whose roofs peoplej burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out liquid offerings to other gods.”’”

14Then Jeremiah went from Topheth where the LORD had sent him to prophesy. He stood in the courtyard of the LORD’s Temple, saying to all the people, 15“This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I’m about to bring on this city and all its towns all the disaster that I declared against it because they were determinedk not to obey my message.’”