Jeremiah and the Broken Jar

Yahweh told Jeremiah to buy a potter’s clay container and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests with him. He was to go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the entry of the gate Harsith, and there announce the words Yahweh would give him.

There Jeremiah was to speak to the kings of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. Yahweh said terrible disaster was coming on that place because they had turned away from him, made the place unclean, burned incense to other gods, and filled it with innocent blood. They had even built high places to Baal and burned their children as offerings, something Yahweh had not commanded or spoken.

Yahweh said the place would no longer be called Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. The plans of Judah and Jerusalem would come to nothing there. Enemies would kill them, the city would become an object of shock, and the siege would be so dreadful that people would do horrifying things in their hunger and distress.

Then Jeremiah was to break the jar in front of the men who were with him. He was to say that Yahweh would break this people and this city like a potter’s vessel that cannot be made whole again. They would bury the dead in Topheth until there was no more room. Even the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah would be defiled like that place, because people had offered worship to other gods on their roofs.

After that, Jeremiah came from Topheth to the court of Yahweh’s house and spoke to all the people. He said Yahweh would bring on Jerusalem and all its towns the disaster he had announced, because they had made their neck stiff and refused to hear his words. Will we listen when God warns us, or stubbornly turn away?