Our Father Shapes His People
18 1 The word that came to Jeremiah from our Father: 2 "Get up and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words."
3 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, working at the wheel. 4 And the vessel he was shaping from the clay was ruined in the potter's hand, so he reworked it into another vessel, as the potter saw fit.
5 Then the word of our Father came to me:
6 "Can I not do with you as this potter has done, house of Israel? declares your Father. Look, like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. 7 At any moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to uproot and tear down and destroy it, 8 but if that nation I have spoken against turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring on it. 9 And at any moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended to do for it.
11 Now then, say to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: This is what your Father says: Look, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil way, and make your ways and your deeds good." a a v11 The word for "shaping" here is the same one used for the potter at his wheel — our Father, the potter, warns that he is now shaping the consequences his people's own choices have set in motion.
12 But they say, "It is hopeless! We will follow our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart."
13 Therefore this is what our Father says: Ask now among the nations—who has ever heard anything like this? The virgin Israel has done a most horrible thing. 14 Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave the rocky slopes? Do the cool waters flowing from distant sources ever run dry? 15 Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols, causing them to stumble from the ancient paths and walk on side roads—rough, unbeaten tracks, 16 making their land a desolation, an object of perpetual scorn; all who pass by it will be appalled and shake their heads. 17 Like the 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.
18 Then they said, "Come, let us devise plans against Jeremiah, for the law will not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us attack him with our words and pay no attention to anything he says." 19 Pay attention to me, my Father, and hear the voice of my accusers! 20 Should evil be repaid for good? Yet they have dug a pit to take my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them. 21 So hand their children over to famine; give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their men be put to death, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. 22 Let cries ring out from their houses when you suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. 23 But you, my Father, know all their plotting to kill me. Do not forgive their iniquity or blot out their sin from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.