Jeremiah 18-22 (reading for Saturday August 17th, 2019)

Jeremiah 19:1-5 
Thus says the Lord, "Go, buy a potter's earthenware flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests, and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. You shall say, 'Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind--

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     The valley of Hinnom may very well be the place that was being referred to when we form our images of Hell.  It was certainly a place of evil and a place whose inhabitants had turned from God and embraced the false idols baal and molech.  God vows to destroy this place, that is to destroy hell.  By paying the price on the cross for our sins, God has destroyed the power of hell over us.  God loved us so much that he was willing to pay our debt for us.
John 3:16 -17   "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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