1. Thus 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,
3. and 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,
5. and 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.