Thus says Jehovah, 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;

And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is at the entrance of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words which I will speak to you,

And say, Hear the word of Jehovah, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I am about to bring evil upon this place, at which the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle;

Because they have forsaken Me and have estranged this place from Me and have burned incense in it to other gods, which neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent,

And 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, nor did it come up in My heart.

Therefore indeed, days are coming, declares Jehovah, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.

And I will make void 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 life, and I will give their corpses to the birds of heaven and to the beasts of the earth for food.

And I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss at all its wounds.

And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each one will eat his neighbor's flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life distress them.

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

And you shall say to them, Thus says Jehovah of hosts, So I will break this people and this city in the same way as one breaks the potter's vessel so that it cannot be repaired any more, and they will bury in Topheth because there will be no other place to bury.

Thus I will deal with this place, declares Jehovah, and with its inhabitants, so as to make this city like Topheth.

And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be like the place Topheth, defiled because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burnt incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.

Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where Jehovah had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the house of Jehovah and said to all the people,

Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I am about to bring to this city and upon all its cities all the evil that I have spoken against it because they have stiffened their neck so as not to hear My words.