Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 Thus said the LORD, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and [take] of the Zakenim of the people, and of the Zakenim of the Kohanim;
1
God said to me, "Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests
2 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;
2
and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside the Potsherd Gate, and preach there what I tell you.
3 and say, Hear you the word of the LORD, kings of Yehudah, and inhabitants of Yerushalayim: thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Yisra'el, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears shall tingle.
3
"Say, 'Listen to God's Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I'm about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring!
4 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 Yehudah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents,
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Doom - because they've walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom - because they have massacred innocent people.
5 and have built the high places of Ba`al, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings to Ba`al; which I didn't command, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind:
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Doom - because they've built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at!
6 therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tofet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter.
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"'And so it's pay day, and soon' - God's Decree! - 'this place will no longer be known as Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Massacre Meadows.
7 I will make void the counsel of Yehudah and Yerushalayim 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 eretz.
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I'm canceling all the plans Judah and Jerusalem had for this place, and I'll have them killed by their enemies. I'll stack their dead bodies to be eaten by carrion crows and wild dogs.
8 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.
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I'll turn this city into such a museum of atrocities that anyone coming near will be shocked speechless by the savage brutality.
9 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.
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The people will turn into cannibals. Dehumanized by the pressure of the enemy siege, they'll eat their own children! Yes, they'll eat one another, family and friends alike.'
10 Then shall you break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you,
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"Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you.
11 and shall tell them, Thus says the LORD 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 Tofet, until there be no place to bury.
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Then say, 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They'll bury bodies here in Topheth until there's no more room.
12 Thus will I do to this place, says the LORD, and to the inhabitants of it, even making this city as Tofet:
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And the whole city will become a Topheth.
13 and the houses of Yerushalayim, and the houses of the kings of Yehudah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Tofet, 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.
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The city will be turned by people and kings alike into a center for worshiping the star gods and goddesses, turned into an open grave, the whole city an open grave, stinking like a sewer, like Topheth.'"
14 Then came Yirmeyahu from Tofet, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD's house, and said to all the people:
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Then Jeremiah left Topheth, where God had sent him to preach the sermon, and took his stand in the court of God's Temple and said to the people,
15 Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Yisra'el, 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.
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"This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies to you: 'Warning! Danger! I'm bringing down on this city and all the surrounding towns the doom that I have pronounced. They're set in their ways and won't budge. They refuse to do a thing I say.'"
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.