Jeremiah 18:1-17 - The Potter And The Clay
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will make you hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and saw that he was working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter’s hand; so he made it over, reworking it and making it into another pot that seemed good to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” says the Lord. “Look carefully, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. 7 At one moment I might [suddenly] speak concerning a nation or kingdom, that I will uproot and break down and destroy; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will
13
“Therefore thus says the Lord,
‘Ask now among the nations,
Who has heard of such things?
The virgin Israel
Has done a very vile and horrible thing.
‘Will the snow of [Mount] Lebanon melt and vanish from its rocks [which tower above Israel]?
Will the cold, rushing waters of foreign lands [that flow down from the distant land] be dried up?
‘Yet My people have forgotten Me;
They burn incense to worthless gods,
They have stumbled from their ways
From the ancient roads,
To walk in pathways,
Not on a highway,
Making their land a desolation and a horror,
A thing to be hissed at perpetually;
Everyone who passes by will be astounded
And shake his head [in scorn].
‘I will scatter them like an east wind
Before the enemy;
I will show them My back and not My face
In the day of their disaster [says the Lord].’”