Jeremiah 18 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

The Potter and the Clay

Jer 18:1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

Jer 18:2“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear[fn] my words.”

Jer 18:3So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel.

Jer 18:4And 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.

Jer 18:5

Jer 18:5Then the word of the LORD came to me:

Jer 18:6

Jer 18:6“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.

Jer 18:7

Jer 18:7If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,

Jer 18:8

Jer 18:8and 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.

Jer 18:9

Jer 18:9And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,

Jer 18:10

Jer 18:10and 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.

Jer 18:11

Jer 18:11Now, 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.’

Jer 18:12

Jer 18:12“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.’

Jer 18:13

Jer 18:13“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.

Jer 18:14

Jer 18:14Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?[fn]
Do the mountain waters run dry,[fn]
the cold flowing streams?

Jer 18:15

Jer 18:15But 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,

Jer 18:16

Jer 18:16making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by it is horrified
and shakes his head.

Jer 18:17

Jer 18:17Like 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.”

Jer 18:18

Jer 18:18Then 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.”

Jer 18:19

Jer 18:19Hear me, O LORD,
and listen to the voice of my adversaries.

Jer 18:20

Jer 18:20Should 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.

Jer 18:21

Jer 18:21Therefore 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.

Jer 18:22

Jer 18:22May 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.

Jer 18:23

Jer 18:23Yet 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.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(18:2)

Or will cause you to hear

(18:14)

Hebrew of the field

(18:14)

Hebrew Are foreign waters plucked up

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