1. Thus said the Lord, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;
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.
3. Say, ‘Hear the Lord’s word, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.
4. Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burnt incense in it to other gods, that they didn’t know, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents,
5. and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal; which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind:
6. therefore, behold, the days come,” says the Lord, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.
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.