23. I also gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Do all that I command, and good things will happen to you.
24. But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were stubborn and did whatever their evil hearts wanted. They went backward, not forward.
25. Since the day your ancestors left Egypt, I have sent you my servants, the prophets. I sent them to you again and again.
26. But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were very stubborn. And they did more evil than their ancestors.’
27. “Jeremiah, you will tell these things to the people of Judah. But they will not listen to you! You will call to them, but they will not answer you.
28. So say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth. It has disappeared from their lips.
29. “‘Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry. Do it because I, the Lord, have rejected these people. I have turned my back on them. And in my anger I will punish them!
30. The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hated idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped. They have made it unclean!
31. The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There the people offered their own sons and daughters as sacrifices. This is something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind!
32. So, I warn you. The days are coming, says the Lord, when people will not call this place Topheth. They will not call it the Valley of Ben Hinnom anymore. They will call it the Valley of Killing. They will bury dead people in Topheth until there is no room to bury anyone else!
33. Then the bodies of the dead will lie on top of the ground. They will become food for the birds of the sky. Wild animals will eat the bodies. There will be no one left alive to chase the birds or animals away.
34. I will end the happy sounds of the bride and bridegroom. There will be no happy sounds in Judah or in the streets of Jerusalem. The land will become an empty desert!