The valley of death

30 The Lord says, ‘The people of Judah have done things that I see are evil. They have put their disgusting idols in my temple. That is the place that I chose to be my special home, and they have made it unclean. 31 They have built altars in Topheth, in Ben-Hinnom Valley. On those altars, they light fires to burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices. I never commanded them to do that. I never even thought about it. 32 So listen to me! The time will soon come when people no longer call those places Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley. Instead, they will call it Death Valley. They will bury lots of dead people there. There will be no space left to bury any more people! 33 Then the bodies of dead people will lie on the ground. Birds and animals will come and eat them. There will be nobody to chase them away. 34 Jerusalem and all of Judah will become like a desert where nobody lives. There will be no noise of happy people. There will be no happy songs or marriage parties. The whole land will be quiet.’

Jeremiah 8

1 The Lord says, ‘At that time, your enemies will open the graves of your leaders and they will remove their bones. They will remove the bones of Judah's kings and their officers, as well as the priests and prophets. They will also remove the bones of the ordinary people of Jerusalem. 2 They will leave the bones all over the ground, under the sun, the moon and the stars. Those were the gods that my people loved. They served them and they worshipped them. Nobody will take their bones and bury them again. They will lie on the ground, like dung. 3 The people of this wicked nation who are still alive will want to die. I will send them away as prisoners to other countries. They will not want to live in those places. They will all want to die.’ That is what the Lord Almighty says.