The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 18 The Potter's Vessel. The Impenitence of the People

 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 18

The Potter's Vessel. The Impenitence of the People

1 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

2 “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.”

3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.

4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?” says the Lord. “Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

7 At the moment when I speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy.

8 If that nation, against which I have spoken, turns from its wickedness, then I will relent of the evil that I thought to do to it.

9 And at the moment I speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, to build and to plant it,

10 if it does evil in my sight, not obeying my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had said I would do to it.

11 Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I am forging evil against you, and I devise a plan against you; now therefore turn, each of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.’

12 But they say, ‘There is no hope, for we shall walk after our own devices; and each one shall do according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

13 Therefore thus says the Lord: “Ask now among the nations, who has heard of such a thing? The virgin of Israel has done a most horrible thing!”

14 Will the snow of Lebanon be forsaken for a rock in the field? Or will the strange, cold, flowing waters be forsaken?

15 Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols. They have made us stumble in their ways, in the paths that are far from level,

16 to make their land an astonishment and a perpetual derision; everyone who passes by it will be appalled and shake their head.

17 I will scatter them like an east wind before the enemy; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their destruction.

18 Then they said, “Come, let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law will not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not heed any of his words.”

19 Look upon me, O Lord, and hear the voice of them that contend with me.

20 Shall evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul: remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, to turn away thy wrath from them.

21 Therefore give their children over to famine, and deliver them to the power of the sword; let their wives be bereaved of their children, and let them be widows; and let their husbands be slain by the sword in battle.

22 Let the cry of their houses be heard, when thou shalt bring squadrons upon them suddenly. Therefore they have dug a pit to trap me, and laid snares for my feet.

23 But thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me to kill me; pardon not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from before thy face: but let them stumble before thee; deal with them thus in the time of thy anger.