Shared Word Translation
Jeremiah 18
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
“Rise, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.”
So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working at the wheel.
But the vessel he was making from clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, so he made it again into another vessel, as seemed right to the potter to make.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
“Can I not do with you as this potter has done, house of Israel?” declares the LORD. “Look: as clay is 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, to tear down, and to destroy it;
but if that nation turns from its evil, concerning which I have spoken, I will relent of the disaster that I planned to bring upon it.
At another moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
but if it does what is evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, I will relent of the good that I said I would do for it.
“Now say, please, to the people of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Turn back, each of you, from your evil way, and make your ways and your deeds good.”
But they will say, “It is hopeless! For we will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of an evil heart.”
Therefore thus says the LORD:
“Ask among the nations:
who has heard such things?
The virgin Israel
has done a most horrible thing.
Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the rock of the open field?
Or are cold, flowing waters,
foreign waters, plucked away?
Yet my people have forgotten me;
they burn incense to a worthless thing.
They have made them stumble in their ways,
the ancient paths,
to walk on bypaths,
on a road not built up,
making their land a horror,
an object of perpetual hissing.
Everyone who passes by it
will be appalled
and shake their head.
Like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy.
I will show them my back, 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 word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not listen to any of his words.”
Listen to me, LORD,
and hear the voice of those who contend with me.
Should evil be repaid for good?
Yet 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 to famine;
hand them over to the power of the sword.
Let their wives become bereaved and widowed;
let their men be slain by 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 upon them;
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden traps for my feet.
But you, LORD, know
all their plans against me for death.
Do not cover over their guilt
or blot out their sin from before you.
Let them be made to stumble before you;
in the time of your anger,
act against them.