1-3 This is what the Lord says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, and say, 'Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord  Almighty, the God of Israel, says: listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.' 4-6 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal – something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.  So beware, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.”

7-10 “In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.” 11-12 “Then - break the jar while those who go with you are watching, and say to them, 'This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here', declares the Lord. 'I will make this city like Topheth.' 13 'The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth – all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.'”

14-15 Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the Lord’s temple and said to all the people, “This is what the  Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.'” Jeremiah 19:1-15 New International Version

Once again God gave a visual aid for the severe message Jeremiah was sent to tell the people. The picture is in vs 11-12, and the crash of the jar and its shattered pieces should've made a deep impression on them. In a previous picture of a potter and a jar God had shown that a jar could be reshaped in a potter's hands. Now, tragically, they were beyond repentance. And just as significant as the shattered jar itself, so the place where Jeremiah did this ought also to have spoken to those elders and priests. More than half a dozen times in these 15 verses Jeremiah used the phrase 'in this place' or 'this city'. It seems that the valley of Ben Hinnom and Topheth were where so much of the wickedness described in vs 4-6 & 13 took place.

What about our life? Is there a place that needs shattering? Christians sometimes speak of the problem of a wrong thing in their life they find difficult to deal with. But sometimes the truth is that they don't really want to part with, or give up, that secret indulgence. While it's often something physical, it can also be deep grudges, resentments, or a refusal to respond to someone seeking to restore a relationship that was broken. It may be with an ex-friend, or even a parent or child. What does God say was the main obstacle keeping the people from recovery? (vs 14-15)

To be stiff-necked implies a rigid stubbornness that refuses help and correction. It’s an attitude that affects our hearing – we don't want to listen to what God's word has to say about our situation and the way of recovery. If there is such a place in our life may we run to the divine Potter and plead that we might be shaped afresh rather than shattered.