Jeremiah 19:1-7 ▼

1 Thus says Yahweh, “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

2 Then go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and there call out the words that I tell you

3 and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle.

4 Because they have forsaken Me and have made this a foreign place and have burned incense in it to other gods, that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent

5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever come upon My heart,

6 therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter.

7 I will empty out the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem to the point of destruction 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 I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.