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¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

²“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.”

³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.

⁴But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

⁵Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

⁶“Am I not able, house of Israel, to deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.

⁷At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot it, to tear it down, or to destroy it;

⁸if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I planned to bring on it.

⁹Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;

¹⁰if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will relent of the good with which I said that I would bless it.

¹¹So now, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘This is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am forming a disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Now turn back, each of you from his evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds!” ’

¹²But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will persist in the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

¹³“Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘Just ask among the nations, Who ever heard anything like this? The virgin of Israel Has done a most appalling thing.

¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon leave the rock of the open country alone? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever dried up?

¹⁵For My people have forgotten Me, They burn incense to worthless gods. And they have stumbled in their ways, In the ancient roads, To walk on paths, Not on a highway,

¹⁶To make their land a desolation, An object of perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head.

¹⁷Like an 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.’ ”

¹⁸Then they said, “Come and let’s devise plans against Jeremiah. Certainly the Law is not going to be lost by the priest, nor advice by the wise, nor the divine word by the prophet! Come, and let’s strike at him with our tongue, and let’s pay no attention to any of his words.”

¹⁹Give Your attention to me, LORD, And listen to what my opponents are saying!

²⁰Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good in their behalf, So as to turn Your wrath away from them.

²¹Therefore, give their children over to famine And turn them over to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be slaughtered to death, Their young men struck and killed by the sword in battle.

²²May a cry be heard from their houses When You suddenly bring raiders upon them; For they have dug a pit to capture me And hidden snares for my feet.

²³But You, LORD, know All their deadly schemes against me; Do not forgive their wrongdoing Or wipe out their sin from Your sight. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!

¹This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests.

²Then go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the entrance of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you,

³and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold I am going to bring a disaster upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle.

⁴Since they have abandoned Me and have made this place foreign, and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and since they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent

⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I did not command nor speak of, nor did it ever enter My mind;

⁶therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the Valley of Slaughter.

⁷And I will frustrate the planning of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will make their carcasses food for the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth.

⁸I will also turn this city into an object of horror and hissing; everyone who passes by it will be appalled and hiss because of all its disasters.

⁹And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh during the siege and in the hardship with which their enemies and those who seek their life will torment them.” ’

¹⁰“Then you are to break the jar in the sight of the men who accompany you,

¹¹and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD of armies says: “To the same extent I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot again be repaired; and they will bury their dead in Topheth, because there is no other place for burial.

¹²This is how I will treat this place and its inhabitants,” declares the LORD, “so as to make this city like Topheth.

¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like the place Topheth, because of all the houses on whose rooftops they burned sacrifices to all the heavenly lights and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the courtyard of the LORD’S house and said to all the people,

¹⁵“This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘Behold, I am going to bring on this city and all its towns the entire disaster that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to listen to My words.’ ”

¹When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief overseer in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,

²Pashhur had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put him in the stocks that were at the upper Benjamin Gate, which was by the house of the LORD.

³Then on the next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “Pashhur is not the name the LORD has called you, but rather Magor-missabib.

⁴For this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am going to make you a horror to yourself and to all your friends; and while your eyes look on, they will fall by the sword of their enemies. So I will hand all Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will take them away as exiles to Babylon and will kill them with the sword.

⁵I will also give all the wealth of this city, all its produce and all its valuable things—even all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will hand over to their enemies, and they will plunder them, take them away, and bring them to Babylon.

⁶And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into captivity; and you will enter Babylon, and there you will die and there you will be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have falsely prophesied.’ ”

⁷LORD, You persuaded me and I let myself be persuaded; You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; Everyone mocks me.

⁸For each time I speak, I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, Because for me the word of the LORD has resulted In taunting and derision all day long.

⁹But if I say, “I will not remember Him Nor speak anymore in His name,” Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; And I am tired of holding it in, And I cannot endure it.

¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce him; let’s denounce him!” All my trusted friends, Watching for my fall, say: “Perhaps he will be persuaded, so that we may prevail against him And take our revenge on him.”

¹¹But the LORD is with me like a powerful champion; Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will be put to great shame because they have failed, An everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.

¹²Yet, LORD of armies, who tests the righteous, Who sees the mind and the heart; Let me see Your vengeance on them, For to You I have disclosed my cause.

¹³Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD! For He has saved the soul of the needy one From the hand of evildoers.

¹⁴Cursed be the day when I was born; May the day when my mother gave birth to me not be blessed!

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought the news To my father, saying, “A boy has been born to you!” And made him very happy.

¹⁶But may that man be like the cities Which the LORD overthrew without relenting, And may he hear an outcry in the morning And an alarm for war at noon;

¹⁷Because he did not kill me before birth, So that my mother would have been my grave, And her womb forever pregnant.

¹⁸Why did I ever come out of the womb To look at trouble and sorrow, So that my days have been spent in shame?

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying,

²“Please inquire of the LORD in our behalf, because Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us; perhaps the LORD will deal with us in accordance with all His wonderful acts, so that the enemy will withdraw from us.”

³But Jeremiah said to them, “You shall say to Zedekiah as follows:

⁴‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I am going to turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you are making war against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall; and I will gather them into the middle of this city.

⁵And I Myself will make war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, and in anger, wrath, and great indignation.

⁶I will also strike the inhabitants of this city, both the people and the animals; they will die of a great plague.

⁷Then afterward,” declares the LORD, “I will hand Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, that is, those who survive in this city from the plague, the sword, and the famine, over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, to their enemies, and to those who seek their lives; and he will strike and kill them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them nor have pity nor compassion.” ’

⁸“You shall also say to this people, ‘This is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.

⁹Anyone who stays in this city will die by the sword, by famine, or by plague; but anyone who leaves and goes over to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and he will have his own life as plunder.

¹⁰For I have set My face against this city for harm and not for good,” declares the LORD. “It will be handed over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire.” ’

¹¹“Then say to the household of the king of Judah, ‘Hear the word of the LORD,

¹²house of David, this is what the LORD says: “Administer justice every morning; And save the person who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor, So that My wrath will not spread like fire And burn, with no one to extinguish it, Because of the evil of their deeds.

¹³“Behold, I am against you, you inhabitant of the valley, You rocky plain,” declares the LORD, “You who say, ‘Who will come down against us? Or who will enter our dwellings?’

¹⁴But I will punish you according to the results of your deeds,” declares the LORD, “And I will kindle a fire in its forest So that it may devour all its surroundings.” ’ ”