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“This is what the Lord said to me: go and get a burnt vessel for the poor, and bring it from the elders of men and from the elders of the priests” (Jer. 19:1). The prophet crushed this vessel in the valley of Tophet and said that this way the people would be crushed by the Babylonians. Then he repeated the same word in the church courtyard. Jeremiah did this according to the custom of other prophets, in order to impress the prophecy more deeply in the minds, so that the people would see with their eyes and hear his word with their ears. And the prophet chose the valley of Tophet because in this place the Jews served vile and vile idols, and sacrificed their sons and daughters to them. Therefore, he adds the following: “and I will feed them, they will eat the flesh of their sons and... their daughters” (Jer. 19:9), that is, those who sacrificed the flesh of their children to idols. Such a severe punishment was suffered by the Jews when Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians under Zedekiah, which Jeremiah saw with his own eyes, and in the book of Lamentations He described it to Jeremiah, saying: “The hands of merciful women have brought their children together” (Lam. 4:10). You might be interested in: