The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 19 The Broken Jar. The Ruin of Jerusalem

 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 19

The Broken Jar. The Ruin of Jerusalem

1 Thus says the Lord: Go and buy a potter's jar, and take with you the elders of the people and the elders of the priests.

2 And go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is at the entrance of the Sun Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you.

3 And say: Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring such great evil upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.

4 Because they have forsaken me and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods, which neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

5 For they have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak of, nor did it enter my heart.

6 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

7 For I will frustrate 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 lives; and I will give their corpses as food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

8 And I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss because of all its plagues.

9 And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his neighbor, in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall distress them.

10 Then you shall break the jar in the sight of the men who go with you.

11 And you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Thus I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury them in Tophet, because there will be no other place to bury them.’”

12 Thus I will do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants; yes, to make this city like Tophet.

13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Tophet, as also all the houses on whose roofs they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to strange gods.

14 Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord and said to all the people:

15 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all its cities all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, so as not to hear my words.