Jeremiah 18

1The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,

2Get up and go down to the potter's house, and there I will make you hear my words.

3I went down to the house of the potter, and there he was at work on the wheels.

4The vessel that he was making of clay was marred in the potter's hand, and he turned back and made it another vessel, as was right in the potter's sight to make it.

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

6House of Israel, can't I deal with you as this potter does? says Yahweh. Look, as clay is in the potter's hand, so you are in my hand, house of Israel.

7The moment I speak about a nation and kingdom to uproot and tear down and destroy it,

8If that nation turns from its evil that I spoke against it, I will relent concerning the evil that I planned to do to it.

9And the moment I speak about a nation and a kingdom to build and plant it,

10If it does evil in my sight by not heeding my voice, then I will relent from the good that I said I would do to it.

11Now therefore, please say to the men of Judah and Jerusalem's inhabitants: Thus says Yahweh: See, I am forming disaster against you and devising a scheme against you; return now, each from his evil way, and make your ways and your deeds good.

12They said, "It is hopeless, for we will follow our own plans, and we will each act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart."

13Therefore thus says Yahweh: Ask now among the nations—who has heard such things as the very horrible thing virgin Israel has done.

14Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the field, or are cold flowing waters from afar forsaken?

15For my people have forgotten me; they offer incense to worthlessness, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways—the ancient paths—to walk in bypaths, a way not raised up.

16to make their land a desolation, a hissing of hissings forever; every passerby over it will be appalled and shake his head.

17I will scatter them like an east wind before the enemy; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their calamity.

18They said, "Come, let us plot schemes against Jeremiah, for the law will 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 listen to any of his words."

19Give heed to me, Yahweh, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me.

20Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn your anger from them.

21Therefore deliver their sons to famine, and pour them out by the hands of the sword; let their wives be bereaved and widows, and let their men be put to death, their young men struck by the sword in battle.

22May a cry ring out from their houses when you suddenly bring a band against them, for they have dug a pit, a trench, to seize me, and hidden snares for my feet.

23But you, Yahweh, know all their counsel against me to kill me; do not forgive their iniquity and sin from before you, nor blot it out, but let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.