Good News Translation GNT
World English Bible WEB
1 The Lord told me to go and buy a clay jar. He also told me to take some of the elders of the people and some of the older priests,
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Thus said Yahweh, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and [take] of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;
2 and to go through Potsherd Gate out to Hinnom Valley. There I was to proclaim the message that he would give me.
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and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you;
3 The Lord told me to say, "Kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem, listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, have to say. I am going to bring such a disaster on this place that everyone who hears about it will be stunned.
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and say, Hear you the word of Yahweh, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears shall tingle.
4 I am going to do this because the people have abandoned me and defiled this place by offering sacrifices here to other gods - gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known anything about. They have filled this place with the blood of innocent people,
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Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned 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 they have built altars for Baal in order to burn their children in the fire as sacrifices. I never commanded them to do this; it never even entered my mind.
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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 spoke it, neither came it into my mind:
6 So then, the time will come when this place will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley. Instead, it will be known as Slaughter Valley.
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therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter.
7 In this place I will frustrate all the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will let their enemies triumph over them and kill them in battle. I will give their corpses to the birds and the wild animals as food.
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I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.
8 I will bring such terrible destruction on this city that everyone who passes by will be shocked and amazed.
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I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues of it.
9 The enemy will surround the city and try to kill its people. The siege will be so terrible that the people inside the city will eat one another and even their own children."
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I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them.
10 Then the Lord told me to break the jar in front of those who had gone with me
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Then shall you break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you,
11 and to tell them that the Lord Almighty had said, "I will break this people and this city, and it will be like this broken clay jar that cannot be put together again. People will bury their dead even in Topheth because there will be nowhere else to bury them.
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and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that can't be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury.
12 I promise that I will make this city and its inhabitants like Topheth.
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Thus will I do to this place, says Yahweh, and to the inhabitants of it, even making this city as Topheth:
13 The houses of Jerusalem, the houses of the kings of Judah, and indeed all the houses on whose roofs incense has been burned to the stars and where wine has been poured out as an offering to other gods - they will all be as unclean as Topheth."
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and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of the sky, and have poured out drink-offerings to other gods.
14 Then I left Topheth, where the Lord had sent me to proclaim his message. I went and stood in the court of the Temple and told all the people
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Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of Yahweh's house, and said to all the people:
15 that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, "I am going to bring on this city and on every nearby town all the punishment that I said I would, because you are stubborn and will not listen to what I say."
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Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
The World English Bible is in the public domain.