“Then I beat them as [small as] the dust of the earth;
I crushed and stamped them as the mire (dirt, mud) of the streets.

“God has cast me into the mire [a swampland of crisis],
And I have become [worthless] like dust and ashes.

“His underparts are like sharp pieces of broken pottery;
He moves across and spreads out [grooves] like a threshing sledge on the mire (muddy river banks).

Then I beat them fine as the dust before the wind;
I emptied them out as the dirt of the streets.

He brought me up out of a horrible pit [of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock, steadying my footsteps and establishing my path.

I have sunk in deep mire, where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, where a flood overwhelms me.

Rescue me from the mire and do not let me sink;
Let me be rescued from those who hate me and from the deep waters.

I send Assyria against a godless nation
And commission it against the people of My wrath
To take the spoil and to seize the plunder,
And to trample them down like mud in the streets.

But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
For it cannot be quiet,
And its waters toss up mire and mud.

So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down [into the cistern] with ropes. Now there was no water in the cistern but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

‘Then behold, all the women who are left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon and those women will say [to you, King Zedekiah],

“Your close friends
Have prevailed against your better judgment and have overpowered and deceived you;
While your feet were sunk in the mire [of trouble],
They turned back.”

I called on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.

And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it some of the durability and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.

And as you saw the iron mixed with common clay, so they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not merge [for such diverse things or ideologies cannot unite], even as iron does not mix with clay.

Then my enemy [all the pagan nations] shall see it,
And shame [for despising the Lord] will cover her who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will look on her [with satisfaction at her judgment];
Now she (unbelievers) will be trampled down
Like mud of the streets.

For Tyre built herself an [impregnable] stronghold [on an island offshore],
And she has heaped up silver like dust
And gold like the mire of the streets.

“They will be like mighty men
Trampling down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle;
And they will fight because the Lord is with them,
And the [enemies’] riders on horses will be shamed.