Jeremiah 18–19

The Potter and the Clay

18This is the word the Lord spoke to Jeremiah: ²“Go down to the potter’s house, and I will give you my message there.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the potter’s wheel. ⁴He was using his hands to make a pot from clay, but something went wrong with it. So he used that clay to make another pot the way he wanted it to be.

⁵Then the Lord spoke his word to me: ⁶“Family of Israel, can’t I do the same thing with you?” says the Lord. “You are in my hands like the clay in the potter’s hands. ⁷There may come a time when I will speak about a nation or a kingdom that I will pull up by its roots or that I will pull down to destroy it. ⁸But if the people of that nation stop doing the evil they have done, I will change my mind and not carry out my plans to bring disaster to them. ⁹There may come another time when I will speak about a nation that I will build up and plant. ¹⁰But if I see it doing evil by not obeying me, I will change my mind and not carry out my plans to do good for them.

¹¹“So, say this to the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: I am preparing disaster for you and making plans against you. So stop doing evil. Change your ways and do what is right.’ ¹²But the people of Judah will answer, ‘It won’t do any good to try! We will continue to do what we want. Each of us will do what his stubborn, evil heart wants!’ ”

¹³So this is what the Lord says:

“Ask the people in other nations this question:

‘Have you ever heard anything like this?’

The people of Israel have done a horrible thing.

¹⁴The snow on the mountains of Lebanon

never melts from the rocks.

Its cool, flowing streams

do not dry up.

¹⁵But my people have forgotten me.

They burn incense to worthless idols

and have stumbled in what they do

and in the old ways of their ancestors.

They walk along back roads

and on poor highways.

¹⁶So Judah’s country will become an empty desert.

People will not stop making fun of it.

They will shake their heads as they pass by;

they will be shocked at how the country was destroyed.

¹⁷Like a strong east wind,

I will scatter them before their enemies.

At that awful time they will not see me coming to help them;

they will see me leaving.”

Jeremiah’s Fourth Complaint

¹⁸Then the people said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah. Surely the teaching of the law by the priest will not be lost. We will still have the advice from the wise teachers and the words of the prophets. So let’s ruin him by telling lies about him. We won’t pay attention to anything he says.”

¹⁹Lord, listen to me.

Listen to what my accusers are saying!

²⁰Good should not be paid back with evil,

but they have dug a pit in order to kill me.

Remember that I stood before you

and asked you to do good things for these people

and to turn your anger away from them.

²¹So now, let their children starve,

and let their enemies kill them with swords.

Let their wives lose their children and husbands.

Let the men from Judah be put to death

and the young men be killed with swords in battle.

²²Let them cry out in their houses

when you bring an enemy against them suddenly.

Let all this happen, because my enemies have dug

a pit to capture me and have hidden traps for my feet.

²³Lord, you know

about all their plans to kill me.

Don’t forgive their crimes

or erase their sins from your mind.

Make them fall from their places;

punish them while you are angry.

Judah Is like a Broken Jar

19This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. ²Take some of the elders of the people and the priests, and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the front of the Potsherd Gate. There speak the words I tell you. ³Say, ‘Kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem, listen to this message from the Lord. This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: I will soon bring a disaster on this place that will amaze and frighten everyone who hears about it. ⁴The people of Judah have quit following me. They have made this a place for foreign gods. They have burned sacrifices to other gods that neither they, nor their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah had ever known before. They filled this place with the blood of innocent people. ⁵They have built places on hilltops to worship Baal, where they burn their children in the fire to Baal. That is something I did not command or speak about; it never even entered my mind. ⁶Now people call this place the Valley of Ben Hinnom or Topheth, but the days are coming, says the Lord, when people will call it the Valley of Killing.

⁷“ ‘At this place I will ruin the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. The enemy will chase them, and I will have them killed with swords. I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild animals. ⁸I will completely destroy this city. People will make fun of it and shake their heads when they pass by. They will be shocked when they see how the city was destroyed. ⁹An enemy army will surround the city and will not let anyone go out to get food. I will make the people so hungry that they will eat the bodies of their own sons and daughters, and then they will begin to eat each other.’

¹⁰“While the people with you are watching, break that jar. ¹¹Then say this: ‘The Lord All-Powerful says: I will break this nation and this city just as someone breaks a clay jar that cannot be put back together again. The dead people will be buried here in Topheth, because there is no other place for them. ¹²This is what I will do to these people and to this place, says the Lord. I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses in Jerusalem and the king’s palaces will become as unclean as this place, Topheth, because the people worshiped gods on the roofs ⁿ of their houses. They worshiped the stars and burned incense to honor them and gave drink offerings to gods.’ ”

¹⁴When Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, he went to the Lord’s Temple, stood in the courtyard, and said to all the people: ¹⁵“This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will soon bring disaster to Jerusalem and the villages around it, as I said I would. This will happen because the people are very stubborn and do not listen at all to what I say.’ ”