Jeremiah 19:10-15

19:10 The Lord continued, ¹  “Now break the jar in front of those who have come here with you. 19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ²  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ³  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁴  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ⁵  19:12 I, the Lord, say: ⁶  ‘That is how I will deal with this city and its citizens. I will make it like Topheth. 19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies ⁷  just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars ⁸  and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.’”

19:14 Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord’s temple and stood ⁹  in its courtyard and called out to all the people. 19:15 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁰  says, ‘I will soon bring on this city and all the towns surrounding it ¹¹  all the disaster I threatened to do to it. I will do so because they have stubbornly refused ¹²  to pay any attention to what I have said!’”

¹ tn The words “And the Lord continued” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to take us clearly back to the flow of the narrative begun in vv. 1-2 and interrupted by the long speech in vv. 3-9.

² tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

³ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

⁴ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

⁵ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

⁶ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

⁷ tn The words “by dead bodies” is not in the text but is implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁸ tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

⁹ tn Heb “And Jeremiah entered from Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy and he stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

¹¹ tn Heb “all its towns.”

¹² tn Heb “They hardened [or made stiff] their neck so as not to.”