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The Potter’s Clay Idols

For the potter, laboriously working the soft earth,
    molds for our service each single article:
He fashions out of the same clay
    both the vessels that serve for clean purposes
    and their opposites, all alike;
As to what shall be the use of each vessel of either class
    the worker in clay is the judge.(A)

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16 Your perversity is as though the potter
    were taken to be the clay:
As though what is made should say of its maker,
    “He did not make me!”
Or the vessel should say of the potter,
    “He does not understand.”(A)

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Woe to anyone who contends with their Maker;(A)
    a potsherd among potsherds of the earth![a]
Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?”
    or, “What you are making has no handles”?

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Footnotes

  1. 45:9 No one may challenge God’s freedom of action, exemplified here by the selection of Cyrus as his anointed.

Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?—oracle of the Lord. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.(A)

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