1. Thus said the Lord: Go, buy a potter’s earthenware flask. Take along some of the elders of the people and some of the priests,
2. and go out toward the Valley of Ben-hinnom, at the entrance of the Potsherd Gate; there proclaim the words which I will speak to you:
3. You shall say, Listen to the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such evil upon this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring.
4. All because they have forsaken me and profaned this place by burning incense to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors knew; and because the kings of Judah have filled this place with innocent blood,
5. building high places for Baal to burn their children in fire as offerings to Baal—something I never considered or said or commanded.
6. Therefore, days are coming—oracle of the Lord—when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather, the Valley of Slaughter.
7. In this place I will foil the plan of Judah and Jerusalem; I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hand of those who seek their lives. Their corpses I will give as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
8. I will make this city a waste and an object of hissing. Because of all its wounds, every passerby will be horrified and hiss.
9. I will have them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters; they shall eat one another’s flesh during the harsh siege under which their enemies and those who seek their lives will confine them.