The Broken Jar

19 The Lord says, “Go and buy a pot-maker’s clay jar, and take some of the leaders of the people and some of the older religious leaders. ² Then go out to the valley of BenHinnom, by the Potsherd Gate, and there say the words that I will tell you. ³ Say, ‘Hear the Word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. The Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, “See, I am about to bring much trouble to this place. The ears of everyone that hears of it will hurt. ⁴ The people have left Me and have made this a strange place. They have burned special perfume in it to other gods that they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had never known. They have filled this place with the blood of those who were not guilty. ⁵ They have built the high places of the false god Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt gifts to Baal. This is a thing which I never told them to do or spoke of. It did not even come to My mind. ⁶ So see, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of BenHinnom. Instead it will be called the Valley of Killing. ⁷ I will make the plans of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword in front of those who hate them and by the hand of those who want to kill them. And I will feed their dead bodies to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth. ⁸ I will make this city a waste place, and people will make sounds of hate. Everyone who passes by it will be surprised and make strange noises because of all its troubles. ⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat each other’s flesh when the armies shut them in, and when those who want to kill them bring much trouble to them.”’

¹⁰ “Then you are to break the jar in front of the men who go with you. ¹¹ And say to them, ‘The Lord of All says, “In this way I will break these people and this city, even as one breaks a pot-maker’s jar, which cannot be put back together. Men will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no place left to bury. ¹² This is what I will do to this place and its people,” says the Lord. “I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³ The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be made unclean like Topheth. This will be because of all the houses on whose roofs they burned special perfume to all the false gods of the heavens and poured out drink gifts to other gods.”’”

¹⁴ Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to tell what would happen. And he stood in the open space of the Lord’s house and said to all the people, ¹⁵ “The Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, ‘See, I am about to bring to this city and to all its towns all the trouble that I have spoken about, because they have made their necks hard and would not listen to My Words.’”