18This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me. ⁶He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay^m in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand,ⁿ Israel. ⁷If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted,^o torn down and destroyed, ⁸and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent^p and not inflict on it the disaster^q I had planned. ⁹And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built^r up and planted, ¹⁰and if it does evil^s in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider^t the good I had intended to do for it.^u

¹¹“Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster^v for you and devising a plan^w against you. So turn^x from your evil ways,^y each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’^z

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Cross references

mSee Isa 29:16; 45:9; Ro 9:20–21
nSee Ge 2:7
o Jer 1:10
pSee Ex 32:14; Ps 25:11; Jer 26:13; 36:3; Jnh 3:8–10
q Jer 31:28; 42:10; Da 9:14; Hos 11:8–9; Joel 2:13; Jnh 4:2
r Jer 1:10; 31:28
s Eze 33:18
t 1 Sa 2:29–30; 13:13
uSee Jer 1:10
vSee 2 Ki 22:16; See Jer 4:6
wver 18
xSee Dt 4:30; See 2 Ki 17:13; Isa 1:16–19
ySee Jer 7:3
zSee Job 16:17