﻿Jeremiah.
Chapter 18.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 
“Get up and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.” 
So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working at the wheel. 
The vessel he was making from clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another vessel, as seemed right to the potter to make. 
The word of the LORD came to me: 
“Can I not do with you as this potter does, house of Israel?” declares the LORD. “Look, like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand, house of Israel. 
At one moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to uproot, tear down, and destroy it. 
But if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I planned to bring upon it. 
At another moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to build and plant it. 
But if it does evil in my sight and does not obey my voice, I will relent concerning the good I said I would do for it. 
Now tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: This is what the LORD says: Look, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Turn back, each of you, from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds. 
But they will say, ‘It is hopeless! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” 
Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Ask among the nations: Who has heard anything like this? Virgin Israel has done a most horrifying thing. 
Does the snow of Lebanon leave the rocks of the open country? Are the cold flowing waters from afar ever cut off? 
Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless things. They have been made to stumble in their ways, the ancient paths, and to walk on side paths, an unpaved road, 
making their land a desolation, an object of perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be appalled and shake his head. 
Like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster.” 
Then they said, “Come, let us devise plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will 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 pay no attention to any of his words.” 
Listen to me, LORD, and hear the voice of my adversaries. 
Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them. 
Therefore give their children over to famine and hand them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives be bereaved and widowed; let their men be put to death, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. 
Let a cry be heard from their houses when you suddenly bring a raiding band against them, for they have dug a pit to catch me and hidden snares for my feet. 
But you, LORD, know all their plans to put me to death. Do not forgive their iniquity or blot out their sin from before you. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger. 
