Jeremiah 19:1-15 - The Valley Of The Slaughter

¹ Jehovah says: Go and buy a potter's earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests. ² Then go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom (Hinnom Valley), which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. ³ Say: Hear the word of Jehovah, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold I am about to bring adversity upon this place. The ears of everyone who hears of it will quiver with fear. ⁴ This is because they have forsaken me. They have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods. These are gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the blameless (innocent).' ⁵ They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. This is not something I commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind (heart) (conscience).'

⁶ Therefore days are coming, declares Jehovah, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter. ⁷ I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth. ⁸ I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters. ⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will cause them.'

¹⁰ Then you are to break the jar in the sight of the men who accompany you. ¹¹ Say to them: 'Jehovah of Hosts says: Like this I will break this people and this city. It is just like one breaks a potter's vessel that cannot again be repaired. They will bury in Topheth because there is no other place for burial.' ¹² This is how I will treat this place and its inhabitants,'declares Jehovah, 'I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³ The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like Topheth. They burned sacrifices to the heavenly hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the rooftops of all of their houses.'

¹⁴ Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where Jehovah had sent him to prophesy. He stood in the court of Jehovah's house and said to all the people: ¹⁵ Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel says: 'I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire disaster that I have declared against it. This is because they have stiffened their necks (vigorously resisted) so as not to heed my words.'

²⁸ You will say to them: 'This is the nation that did not obey the voice of Jehovah their God or accept correction. Truth has perished and truth has been removed from their mouth. ²⁹ Cut off your hair and cast it away. Take up a cry of sorrow and grief on the bare heights. Jehovah has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.'

³⁰ The sons of Judah have done what is evil in my sight, declares Jehovah. They placed their detestable things in the house called by my name, to defile it. ³¹ They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. I did not command this. I would never think of such a thing. (It would not come from my heart.)

³² Days are coming, says Jehovah, when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom (Ben-hinnom), but the valley of the Slaughter. They will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. ³³ The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth. No one will frighten them away. ³⁴ I will cause the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem. The land will become a ruin.

¹ Jehovah says: At that time the bones of the kings and the leaders of Judah, the bones of the priests and the prophets, and the bones of the others who lived in Jerusalem will be taken out of their graves. ² They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the sky. These are the things that they had loved, served, gone after, sought, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered or buried, but they will become manure on the ground. ³ Then the few who remain from these wicked people will want to die rather than live where I will scatter them, declares Jehovah of Hosts.