f them that seek their life: and their carcases will I give to be
food for the birds of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. And
I will make this city an astonishment, and an hissing; everyone that
passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the
plagues thereof. And 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, wherewith their
enemies, and they that seek their life, shall distress them.'

"Then shalt thou break the vessel in the sight of the men that go with
thee, and shalt say unto them, 'Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so
will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's
vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury in
Topheth, till there lie no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this
place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, even making this
city as Topheth: 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 upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all
the host of {305} heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto
other gods.'"

Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to
prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord's house, and said to
all the people: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
'Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the
evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have made their
heart hard, that they might not hear my words.'"

III

THE KING'S ANGER

(Jeremiah had his prophecies written down by his clerk. But when the
king read from the scroll on which they were written, he was so angry
that he cut up the scroll, and burned it. This did not prevent the
prophecies from being known, for Jeremiah had them written upon a new
scroll.)

And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah,
king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord,
saying, "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words
that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and
against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days
of Josiah, even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will
hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may
return every man from his evil way;