Jeremiah
18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah: 2 “Rise up and go down to the house of the potter,+ and there I will cause you to hear my words.”
3 So I went down to the house of the potter, and he was working on the potter’s wheels. 4 But the vessel that the potter was making with the clay was spoiled in his hand. So the potter reworked it into another vessel, just as he saw fit.*
5 Then the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: 6 “‘Can I not do to you just as this potter did, O house of Israel?’ declares Jehovah. ‘Look! As the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.+ 7 Whenever I may speak about uprooting and pulling down and destroying a nation or a kingdom,+ 8 and that nation abandons its wickedness that I spoke against, I will also change my mind concerning* the calamity that I intended to bring against it.+ 9 But whenever I speak about building up and planting a nation or a kingdom, 10 and it does what is bad in my eyes and does not obey my voice, I will change my mind concerning* the good that I intended to do for it.’
11 “Now say, please, to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Here I am preparing* a calamity and devising a scheme against you. Turn back, please, from your bad ways, and reform your ways and your practices.”’”+
12 But they said: “It is hopeless!+ For we will walk after our own thoughts, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his wicked heart.”+
13 Therefore this is what Jehovah says:
“Ask for yourselves, please, among the nations.
Who has heard anything like this?
The virgin of Israel has done a most horrible thing.+
14 Does the snow of Lebʹa·non disappear from the rocks on its slopes?
Or will cool waters flowing from afar dry up?
15 But my people have forgotten me.+
For they make sacrifices* to something worthless,+
And they make men stumble in their ways, the ancient paths,+
To walk on back roads that are not smooth and level,*
16 In order to make their land an object of horror+
And something to whistle at forever.+
Every last one passing by it will stare in horror and shake 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 disaster.”+
18 And they said: “Come, let us devise a plot against Jeremiah,+ for the law* will not perish from our priests or counsel from the wise men or the word from the prophets. Come and let us speak against him* and pay no attention to what he says.”
19 Do pay attention to me, O Jehovah,
And listen to what my opponents are saying.
20 Should good be repaid with bad?
For they have dug a pit for my life.*+
Remember how I stood before you to speak good about them,
To turn your wrath away from them.
May their wives become bereaved of children and widowed.+
May their men be killed with deadly plague,
Their young men struck down with the sword in battle.+
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses
When you bring marauders on them suddenly.
For they have dug a pit to capture me
And have laid traps for my feet.+
Do not cover their error,
And do not wipe out their sin from before you.