Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Jeremiah 18
At the potter’s house
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
“Go down to the potter’s house. There I will let you hear my words.”
I went down to the potter’s house. He was there, working at the wheel.
The clay vessel he was making was spoiled in the potter’s hand. So he made it again into another vessel, as he thought best.
Then the LORD’s word came to me:
“House of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand, house of Israel.
At one moment I may speak about a nation or kingdom, to uproot, tear down, and destroy it.
But if that nation turns from the evil I spoke against, I will relent from the disaster I planned to bring on it.
At another moment I may speak about a nation or kingdom, to build and plant it.
But if it does what is evil in my eyes and does not listen to my voice, I will relent from the good I said I would do for it.
“Now tell the people of Judah and Jerusalem’s inhabitants: This is what the LORD says: Look, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Turn, each of you, from your evil way, and put your ways and deeds right.
But they say, ‘It’s no use! We will follow our own plans. Each of us will act on the stubbornness of our evil heart.’”
Ancient paths abandoned
So 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 Lebanon’s snow leave the rocky heights?
Do waters from far away stop flowing,
cold and running?
Yet my people have forgotten me;
they burn offerings to emptiness.
They have been made to stumble in their ways,
the ancient paths,
to walk on bypaths,
a road not built up.
They make their land a horror,
an object of endless hissing.
Everyone who passes 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,
on the day of their calamity.”
A plot and a prayer
Then they said, “Come, let’s devise plans against Jeremiah. Instruction will not disappear from the priest, counsel from the wise, or a word from the prophet. Come, let’s strike him with the tongue and pay no attention to anything he says.”
Pay attention to me, LORD;
listen to what my opponents are saying.
Should evil repay good?
They have dug a pit for my life!
Remember how I stood before you
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn your fury away from them.
So give their children over to famine;
pour them out to the power of the sword.
Let their wives be childless widows;
let their men be struck down by death,
their young men by the sword in battle.
Let a cry be heard from their houses
when you suddenly bring raiders against them.
For they dug a pit to catch me
and hid snares for my feet.
But you, LORD, know all their plans to kill me.
Do not forgive their guilt
or blot out their sin from before you.
Let them be brought down before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.