Jeremiah 7:30-34·~1 min

The Valley of Slaughter

Judah has done evil in the LORD's sight by placing abominations inside the house bearing His name and by building Topheth to burn sons and daughters in the fire. The LORD declares that such a practice never came from His command or desire.

F³⁰or the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it. ³¹They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire — something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

Days are coming when Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom will instead be called the Valley of Slaughter, because burial there will overflow and corpses will be left for birds and beasts. Joy, gladness, and the voices of bride and bridegroom will cease from Judah's cities and Jerusalem's streets as the land becomes a wasteland.

³²So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. ³³The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away. ³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

Section summaryThe chapter's final section narrows Judah's evil to its most defiling forms: abominations in the house bearing God's name and the burning of sons and daughters in Topheth. The place of idolatry will become a place of burial and silence, where joy, marriage, and ordinary life are extinguished under the weight of judgment.

Role in the chapterThis closing section gives the chapter its most severe image of consequences. It turns Judah's chosen site of desecration into the emblem of her judgment and seals the temple sermon with a vision of the land emptied of festal life.