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.’

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