Jeremiah 18

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

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 there he was working at his wheel .

⁴And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand , and he reworked it into another vessel , as it seemed good to the potter to do .

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me:

⁶O house of Israel , can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold , like the clay in the potter’s hand , so are you in my hand , O house of Israel .

⁷If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom , that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,

⁸and if that nation , concerning which I have spoken , turns from its evil , I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.

⁹And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,

¹⁰and if it does evil in my sight , not listening to my voice , then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it .

¹¹Now , therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem : Thus says the Lord, Behold , I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return , every one from his evil way , and amend your ways and your deeds .

¹²But they say , That is in vain ! We will follow our own plans , and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart .

¹³Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask among the nations , Who has heard the like of this ? The virgin Israel has done a very horrible thing .

¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon leave the crags of Sirion ? Do the mountain waters run dry , the cold flowing streams ?

¹⁵But my people have forgotten me; they make offerings to false gods ; they made them stumble in their ways , in the ancient roads , and to walk into side roads , not the highway ,

¹⁶making their land a horror , a thing to be hissed at forever . Everyone who passes by it is horrified and shakes his head .

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 pay attention to any of his words .

¹⁹Hear 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 for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

²¹Therefore deliver up their children to famine ; give them over to the power of the sword ; let their wives become childless and widowed . May their men meet death by pestilence , their youths be struck down by the sword in battle .

²²May a cry be heard from their houses , when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them! For they have dug a pit to take me and laid snares for my feet .

²³Yet you, O Lord, know all their plotting to kill me. Forgive not their iniquity , nor blot out their sin from your sight . Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger .