← Jeremiah
- A. 1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
- B. 2 "Go down at once to the potter's house, and there I will reveal My message to you."
- C. 3 So I went down to the potter's house and saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
- B'. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 "O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?
- C'. Just like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
- A. 7 At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.
- B. 8 But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.
- A'. 9 And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom,
- B'. 10 and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it.
- A. 11 Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: 'Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you.
- B. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.'
- A'. 12 But they will reply, 'It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'"
- A. 13 Therefore this is what the LORD says: "Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
- B. 14 Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky slopes? Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance ever run dry? 15 Yet My people have forgotten Me.
- C. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway.
- B'. 16 They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.
- A'. 17 I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity."
- A. 18 Then some said, "Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah,
- B. for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet.
- A'. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words."
- A. 19 Attend to me, O LORD. Hear what my accusers are saying!
- B. 20 Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, to turn Your wrath from them.
- C. 21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. 22 Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
- B'. for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet.
- A'. 23 But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.