Jeremiah 19
1THEN the Lord said to me, Go and get a pitcher of earthenware and thou shalt take out some of the elders of the people and of the priests
2and go out to the common grave yard which is at the entrance of the gate Charseith and read there all these words which I shall speak to thee and thou shalt say to them,
3Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda and ye men of Juda and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye who enter in at these gates. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold I am bringing evils upon this place, so that the ears of every one who heareth them shall tingle.
4Because they have forsaken Me and profaned this place; and have burned incense in it to strange gods, which neither they nor their fathers knew. And the kings of Juda have filled this place with the blood of innocents,
5and have built high places to Baal to burn their sons with fire, things which I never commanded, and which never came into My mind.
6Therefore behold the days are coming, saith the Lord, When this place shall no more be called, The end of hope, and The grave-yard of the sons of Ennom, but The graveyard of slaughter.
7For I will slaughter the council of Juda and the council of Jerusalem in this place; And cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them who seek their lives. And I will give their carcasses to be meat for the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, and make this city a desolation and an object of pity.
8Everyone who passeth by it shall be sad and express the sound of pity for the stroke which it hath received.
9They shall indeed eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat, every one, the flesh of his neighbour during the blockade and siege with which their enemies shall besiege them.
10Then thou shalt break the pitcher before the eyes of the men who went out with thee
11and say, Thus saith the Lord: So will I break this people and this city: as this earthen pitcher is broken and cannot be mended,
12so will I do, saith the Lord, to this place and to the inhabitants thereof, that this city may be dashed down like that hopeless vessel.
13And the houses of the kings of Juda shall be like this hopeless place, because of their impurities in all the houses, on the tops of which they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out libations to strange gods.
14Now when Jeremias returned from the graveyard whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy, he stood up in the court of the house of the Lord and said to all the people:
15Thus saith the Lord, Behold I am bringing upon this city and upon all the cities belonging to it and upon all the villages thereof all the evils which I have denounced against it, because they have hardened their necks so as not to hearken to My commandments.