18
Jeremiah

The Potter and the Broken Jar: Judgment on Jerusalem

Jeremiah 18:1-19:15
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words. 3So I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was making work upon the wheels. 4And the vessel that he was making of clay in the hand of the potter was ruined, so he returned and made it another vessel, as seemed good in the eyes of the potter to make. 5Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6O house of Israel, am I not able to do to you as this potter does? declares the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7At one moment I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to uproot and to tear down and to destroy. 8and if that nation turns from its evil concerning which I have spoken, then I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9And at one moment I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant. 10and if it does evil in my sight by not obeying my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had said I would do to it. 11And now say, please, to the man of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the LORD: Behold, I am forming evil against you and devising a plot against you. Return, please, each one from his evil way, and make good your ways and your deeds. 12And they say, We despair, for after our plots we will walk, and each one will do the stubbornness of his evil heart. 13Therefore thus says the LORD: Ask, please, among the nations, Who has heard the like of these things? The virgin of Israel has done a horror, very much. 14Does the snow of Lebanon leave the rock of Sirion? Or are the strange cool flowing waters uprooted? 15But my people have forgotten me; they make offerings to worthless things; they have stumbled in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in roads not built up. 16To make their land a horror, an everlasting hissing; all who pass by it will be appalled and will shake their heads. 17Like the east wind I will scatter them before the enemy; I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity. 18Then they said, Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall 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 listen to any of his words. 19Give heed to me, O LORD, and listen to the voice of my adversaries. 20Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, to turn your wrath from them. 21Therefore deliver their children to famine; pour them out to the power of the sword; let their wives become childless and widows; let their men be slain by death, their youths struck down by the sword in battle. 22An outcry will be heard from their houses, for you will bring a band suddenly upon them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. 23But you, O LORD, know all their plotting to kill me. Do not forgive their iniquity or blot out their sin from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.
Chapter 19
1Thus says the LORD: "Go and buy a flask of the potter, earthenware, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests." 2Go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. 3Say: 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. 4Because they 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. 5They 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. 6Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. 7And in this place I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem; I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. 8I will make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds. 9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them. 10Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you. 11And you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: So I will break this people and this city, as one breaks the vessel of the potter, which cannot be healed again, and in Topheth they will bury because there is no place to bury. 12So I will do to this place, declares the LORD, and to its inhabitants, and to make this city like Topheth. 13And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be like the place of Topheth, the unclean ones, for all the houses on whose roofs they have burned offerings to all the host of heaven and have poured out drink offerings to other gods. 14Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the LORD and said to all the people. 15Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.
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