The LORD commands Jeremiah to purchase a clay jar and take elders of the people and priests with him.
Jeremiah 19:1-6
1 Thus said Yahweh, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;
The sign-act is to be performed near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate in a place associated with idolatrous judgment.
2 and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you.
The LORD announces shocking disaster against the kings of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.
3 Say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.
They have burned incense to other gods and filled the place with innocent blood.
4 Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods that they didn’t know, they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents,
They built high places of Baal to burn their children, an abomination the LORD never commanded or conceived.
5 and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind.
The LORD declares a new name for the valley, transforming an idolatrous site into a slaughter site.
6 Therefore, behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.
Judah will fall by sword before enemies, and corpses will become food for birds and wild animals.
Jeremiah 19:7-13
7 “ ‘ “I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void 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 dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.
The city will be devastated and scorned by those who pass by.
8 I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.
The people will eat the flesh of sons, daughters, and one another under siege distress.
9 I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.” ’
Jeremiah smashes the jar in the presence of the elders who accompanied him.
10 “Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you,
The LORD will break Judah and Jerusalem like a potter’s jar that cannot be repaired.
11 and shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.
The city and its inhabitants will be treated like the defiled place of judgment.
12 This is what I will do to this place,” says Yahweh, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth.
Jerusalem’s houses and royal palaces are defiled by astral worship and drink offerings to other gods.
13 The houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”
Jeremiah returns from Topheth and stands in the court of the LORD’s house.
Jeremiah 19:14-15
14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of Yahweh’s house, and said to all the people:
The LORD will bring the announced disaster because the people stiffened their necks and refused his words.
15 “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’ ”