2 ARST Go out of the city past the Broken Pottery Gate, to the place overlooking the dump for broken pottery in the Hinnom Valley. Then give them a message. BSB BSB: and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you,
3 ARST Say to them,‘This message is for you kings of Judah and other people of Jerusalem. Listen to what Yahweh is saying! The God of Israel, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says that he will bring a terrible disaster on Jerusalem. Those who hear about it will be stunned. BSB BSB: saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring,
4 ARST That will happen because you Israelite people have stopped worshiping me, and have caused this place to be a place where you worship foreign gods. You burn sacrifices to gods that neither you nor your ancestors nor even the kings of Judah ever heard about. And you have filled this place with the blood of innocent people whom you have killed. BSB BSB: because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
5 ARST You have built houses on the top of many hills to honor your god Baal, and at those places you have killed your own children and offered them to be sacrifices to Baal. I never commanded you to do that, I never spoke about doing that, and never even considered allowing that! BSB BSB: They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.
6 ARST So, beware, because I, Yahweh, say that there will be a time when this garbage dump will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley; it will be called Slaughter Valley. BSB BSB: So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 ARST In this place I will ruin the plans of you people who live in Jerusalem and in other places in Judah. I will allow your enemies who want to kill you to kill many of you with their swords. Then I will allow your corpses to remain on the ground to be food for vultures and wild animals. BSB BSB: And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.
8 ARST I will completely destroy Jerusalem and cause it to become a heap of ruins that people will despise. All the people who pass by will be appalled, and they will be shocked when they see that the city has been destroyed. BSB BSB: I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.
9 ARST I will enable your enemies who want to kill you to surround the city for a long time. Then the food will be all gone, and you people will be extremely hungry, with the result that you people in the city will eat the flesh of your own children and your neighbors’ children.’ BSB BSB: I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
10 ARST Jeremiah, after you tell that to them, while the people who are with you are watching, smash the jar that you brought. BSB BSB: Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you,
11 ARST Then say to them,‘This is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says: Just like this jar has been smashed and cannot be repaired, I will smash this city of Jerusalem and other places in Judah. You will bury some of your corpses here in this dump, until there is no more space to bury any more corpses. BSB BSB: and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.
12 ARST That is what I will do to this city and to you people who live here. I will make you unfit to worship me, and this city will be like you, just as Topheth is. BSB BSB: This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.
13 ARST The houses in Jerusalem and the palaces of the kings of Judah will be unfit, like this place will be. All the houses where you burned incense on the rooftops to honor the stars that you worshiped, and where you poured out wine to be an offering to your gods, will become unfit for anyone who worships me to live in.’” BSB BSB: The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”
14 ARST Then I returned from the garbage dump where Yahweh had sent me to tell them that message, and I stood in the courtyard of Yahweh’ s temple and said this to all the people who were there: BSB BSB: Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people,
15 ARST “This is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says:‘I will bring a disaster to this city and to the villages around it like I promised, because you people have stubbornly refused to pay attention to what I said to you.’” BSB BSB: “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”
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