JEREMIAH 18-19

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah:

² “Rise up and go down to the house of the potter, and there I will cause you to hear my words.”

³ So I went down to the house of the potter, and he was working on the potter’s wheels.

⁴ But the vessel that the potter was making with the clay was spoiled in his hand. So the potter reworked it into another vessel, just as he saw fit.

⁵ Then the word of Jehovah came to me, saying:

⁶ “‘Can I not do to you just as this potter did, O house of Israel?’ declares Jehovah. ‘Look! As the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

⁷ Whenever I may speak about uprooting and pulling down and destroying a nation or a kingdom,

⁸ and that nation abandons its wickedness that I spoke against, I will also change my mind concerning the calamity that I intended to bring against it.

⁹ But whenever I speak about building up and planting a nation or a kingdom,

¹⁰ and it does what is bad in my eyes and does not obey my voice, I will change my mind concerning the good that I intended to do for it.’

¹¹ “Now say, please, to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Here I am preparing a calamity and devising a scheme against you. Turn back, please, from your bad ways, and reform your ways and your practices.”’”

¹² But they said: “It is hopeless! For we will walk after our own thoughts, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his wicked heart.”

¹³ The virgin of Israel has done a most horrible thing.

¹⁴ Or will cool waters flowing from afar dry up?

¹⁵ To walk on back roads that are not smooth and level,

¹⁶ Every last one passing by it will stare in horror and shake his head.

¹⁷ I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their disaster.”

¹⁸ And they said: “Come, let us devise a plot against Jeremiah, for the law will not perish from our priests or counsel from the wise men or the word from the prophets. Come and let us speak against him and pay no attention to what he says.”

¹⁹ And listen to what my opponents are saying.

²⁰ To turn your wrath away from them.

²¹ Their young men struck down with the sword in battle.

²² And have laid traps for my feet.

²³ When you take action against them in your anger.

¹ This is what Jehovah said: “Go and buy an earthenware flask from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests,

² and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinʹnom, at the entrance of the Gate of the Potsherds. And there proclaim the words that I speak to you.

³ “‘“I am about to bring a calamity on this place, and the ears of anyone who hears about it will tingle.

⁴ It is because they abandoned me and made this place unrecognizable. In it they are sacrificing to other gods, whom they and their forefathers and the kings of Judah had not known, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent ones.

⁵ They built the high places of Baʹal in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to Baʹal, something that I had not commanded or spoken of and that had never even come into my heart.”’

⁶ “‘“Therefore look! the days are coming,” declares Jehovah, “when this place will no longer be called Toʹpheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinʹnom but the Valley of the Slaughter.

⁷ I will thwart the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those seeking to take their life. And I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth.

⁸ And I will make this city an object of horror and something to whistle at. Every last one passing by it will stare in horror and whistle over all its plagues.

⁹ And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will each eat the flesh of his fellow man, because of the siege and their desperation when they are hemmed in by their enemies and those seeking to take their life.”’

¹⁰ “Then break the flask before the eyes of the men who go with you,

¹¹ and say to them, ‘This is what Jehovah of armies says: “This is how I will break this people and this city, like someone who breaks a potter’s vessel so that it can never be repaired; and they will bury the dead in Toʹpheth until there is no more room to bury them.”’

¹² “‘That is what I will do to this place,’ declares Jehovah, ‘and to its inhabitants, to make this city like Toʹpheth.

¹³ And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become unclean like this place, Toʹpheth, yes, all the houses on whose roofs they offered sacrifices to all the army of the heavens and where they poured out drink offerings to other gods.’”

¹⁴ When Jeremiah returned from Toʹpheth where Jehovah sent him to prophesy, he stood in the courtyard of the house of Jehovah and said to all the people:

¹⁵ “This is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘Here I am bringing on this city and on all its towns all the calamity that I have spoken against it, because they stubbornly refused to obey my words.’”