CHAPTER 19
1 The Lord saith these things, Go thou, and take an earthen pottle of a potter, [and] of the elder men of the people, and of the elder men of the priests.
2 And go thou out to the valley of the sons of Hinnom, which is beside the entering of the earthen gate; and there thou shalt preach the words which I shall speak to thee;
3 and thou shalt say, Kings of Judah, and the dwellers of Jerusalem, hear ye the word of the Lord. The Lord of hosts, God of Israel, saith these things, Lo! I shall bring in torment on this place, so that each man that heareth it, his ears tingle.
4 For they have forsaken me, and made alien this place, and offered sacrifices to alien gods therein, which they, and the fathers of them, and the kings of Judah, knew not; and they filled this place with the blood of innocents,
5 and builded high things to Baalim, to burn their sons in fire, into burnt sacrifice to Baalim; which things I commanded not, neither spake, neither those ascended [or went up] into mine heart.
6 Therefore the Lord saith, Lo! days shall come, and this place shall no more be called Tophet, and the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaying.
7 And I shall destroy the counsel of Judah and of Jerusalem in this place, and I shall destroy them by sword, in the sight of their enemies, and in the hand of men seeking the lives of them; and I shall give their dead bodies to be meat to the birds of the air, and to [the] beasts of earth.
8 And I shall set this city into wondering, and into hissing; each that passeth by it, shall wonder, and hiss on all the vengeance thereof.
9 And I shall feed them with the fleshes of their sons, and with the fleshes of their daughters; and each man shall eat the fleshes of his friend in the besieging and anguish, in which the enemies of them, and they that seek the lives of them, shall enclose them altogether.
10 And thou shalt all-break the pottle before the eyes of the men, that shall go with thee.
11 And thou shalt say to them, The Lord of hosts saith these things, So I shall all-break this people, and this city, as the vessel of a potter is all-broken, which may no more be restored; and they shall be buried in Tophet, for none other place is to bury.
12 So I shall do to this place, saith the Lord, and to dwellers thereof, that I set this city as Tophet.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be as the place of Tophet; all the unclean houses, in whose roofs they sacrificed to all the chivalry of heaven, and offered moist sacrifices to alien gods.
14 Forsooth Jeremy came from Tophet, whither the Lord had sent him for to prophesy; and he stood in the porch of the house of the Lord, and said to all the people,
15 The Lord of hosts, God of Israel, saith these things, Lo! I shall bring in on this city, and on all the cities thereof, all the evils which I spake against it; for they made hard their noll, that they heard not my words.