1Thus said יהוה, “Go and get a potter’s earthen jug, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

2“Then you shall go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and shall proclaim there the words that I speak to you,

3and shall say, ‘Hear the word of יהוה, O sovereigns of Yehuḏah and inhabitants of Yerushalayim. Thus said יהוה of hosts, the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, “See, I am bringing evil on this place, that makes the ears tingle of all who hear it.

4“Because they have forsaken Me and have profaned this place, and have burned incense in it to other mighty ones whom neither they, their fathers, nor the sovereigns of Yehuḏah have known, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocents,

5and have built the high places of Ba‛al, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Ba‛al, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My heart.

6“Therefore see, the days are coming,” declares יהוה, “that this place shall no more be called Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but rather the Valley of Slaughter.

7“And I shall pour out the counsel of Yehuḏah and Yerushalayim in this place, and I shall make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives. And I shall give their corpses as meat for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.

8“And I shall make this city a ruin, and a hissing – everyone who passes by it is appalled and hisses because of all its plagues.

9“And I shall make them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their lives distress them.” ’

10“And you shall break the jug before the eyes of the men who go with you,

11and shall say to them, ‘Thus said יהוה of hosts, “Even so I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which one is unable to repair again. And let them bury them in Topheth till there is no place to bury.

12“This is what I shall do to this place,” declares יהוה, “and to its inhabitants, so as to make this city like Topheth.

13“And the houses of Yerushalayim and the houses of the sovereigns of Yehuḏah shall be as unclean as the place of Topheth, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of the heavens, and poured out drink offerings to other mighty ones.” ’ ”

14And when Yirmeyahu returned from Topheth, where יהוה had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the courtyard of the House of יהוה and said to all the people,

15“Thus said יהוה of hosts, the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, ‘See, I am bringing on this city and on all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to hear My words.’ ”