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.”+