ESV

ESV

Click to Change

Return to Top

Return to Top

Printer Icon

Print

Format by: Verse Paragraph
Strong's
Red Letter
Audio Bibles
Cite Print
The Blue Letter Bible

Jeremiah 18 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Choose a new font size and typeface
Audio Bibles

The Potter and the Clay

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear[fn] my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. 11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’

12 “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

 

13 “Therefore thus says the LORD:

Ask among the nations,

Who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel

has done a very horrible thing.

14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave

the crags of Sirion?[fn]

Do the mountain waters run dry,[fn]

the cold flowing streams?

15 But my people have forgotten me;

they make offerings to false gods;

they made them stumble in their ways,

in the ancient roads,

and to walk into side roads,

not the highway,

16 making their land a horror,

a thing to be hissed at forever.

Everyone who passes by it is horrified

and shakes his head.

17 Like the east wind I will scatter them

before the enemy.

I will show them my back, not my face,

in the day of their calamity.”

 

18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall 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 let us not pay attention to any of his words.”

 

19 Hear me, O LORD,

and listen to the voice of my adversaries.

20 Should good be repaid with evil?

Yet they have dug a pit for my life.

Remember how I stood before you

to speak good for them,

to turn away your wrath from them.

21 Therefore deliver up their children to famine;

give them over to the power of the sword;

let their wives become childless and widowed.

May their men meet death by pestilence,

their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.

22 May a cry be heard from their houses,

when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!

For they have dug a pit to take me

and laid snares for my feet.

23 Yet you, O LORD, know

all their plotting to kill me.

Forgive not their iniquity,

nor blot out their sin from your sight.

Let them be overthrown before you;

deal with them in the time of your anger.

 
ESV Footnotes
Or will cause you to hear
Hebrew of the field
Hebrew Are foreign waters plucked up
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

BLB Searches
Search the Bible
ESV
 [?]

Advanced Options

Other Searches

Multi-Verse Retrieval
x
ESV

Daily Devotionals
x

Blue Letter Bible offers several daily devotional readings in order to help you refocus on Christ and the Gospel of His peace and righteousness.

Daily Bible Reading Plans
x

Recognizing the value of consistent reflection upon the Word of God in order to refocus one's mind and heart upon Christ and His Gospel of peace, we provide several reading plans designed to cover the entire Bible in a year.

One-Year Plans

Two-Year Plan

Jeremiah Chapter 18 — Additional Translations: