Jeremiah 18:1-17
Lexham English Bible
The Potter and the Clay
18 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,[a] 2 “Stand up and go down to the house of the potter, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the house of the potter and look, there he was doing work at the potter’s wheels. 4 And the vessel that he was making with the clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so he made again[b] another vessel, as it was right in the eyes of the potter to make.
5 And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,[c] 6 “Like this potter, am I not able to do to you, O house of Israel?” declares[d] Yahweh. “Look, like the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 One moment I speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom, to uproot, and to tear down, and to destroy it.[e] 8 But if that nation turns back from its evil that I have threatened against it, then I will relent concerning the disaster that I planned to do to it. 9 And the next moment I speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom, to build, and to plant it.[f] 10 But if it does evil in my sight, to not listen to my voice, then I will relent concerning the good that I said I would do to it.
11 “So now then, say, please, to the people[g] of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying,[h] ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Look, I am preparing evil against you, and I am planning a plan against you. Please turn back, each one from his evil way, and walk rightly in your ways and your deeds.”’ 12 But they will say, ‘It is hopeless, for we will go after our own plans, and each one of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’
13 “Therefore thus says Yahweh,
‘Please ask among the nations, “Who has heard the like of this?”[i]
The virgin of Israel has done something very horrible.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave from the crags[j] of Sirion?
Or are the cold waters flowing from distant mountains dried up?
15 But my people have forgotten me.
They make smoke offerings to the idols,[k]
and they caused them to stumble in their ways, the ancient ways,
to go into bypaths,[l] not one that is built up.
16 To make their land a horror,
an object of whistling for eternity.
All who pass by it will be appalled,
and he will shake his head.
17 Like the wind from the east
I will scatter them before[m] the enemy.
I will show them my back and not my face
in the day of their disaster.’”
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 18:1 Literally “to say”
- Jeremiah 18:4 Literally “he turned back and he made it”
- Jeremiah 18:5 Literally “to say”
- Jeremiah 18:6 Literally “a declaration of”
- Jeremiah 18:7 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
- Jeremiah 18:9 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
- Jeremiah 18:11 Literally “man”
- Jeremiah 18:11 Literally “to say”
- Jeremiah 18:13 Literally “like these”
- Jeremiah 18:14 Hebrew “crag”
- Jeremiah 18:15 Hebrew “idol”
- Jeremiah 18:15 Literally “paths of way”
- Jeremiah 18:17 Literally “to the face of”
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