1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
2 "Rise and go down to the house of the potter; there I will let you hear my words."
3 I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, working at the wheels.
4 And when the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed right to the potter to make.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
6 "Can I not do with you, house of Israel, as this potter does? declares the LORD. See, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
7 At one moment I speak about a nation or a kingdom, to uproot, to tear down and to destroy;
8 but if that nation I spoke against turns back from its evil, I will relent of the evil I had planned to do to it.
9 At another moment I speak about a nation or a kingdom, to build and to plant;
10 but if it does evil in my eyes by not listening to my voice, I will relent of the good I had said I would do for it.
11 So now, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 'Thus says the LORD: See, I am forming evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn back, each from his evil way, and improve your ways and your doings.'
12 But they say, 'It is no use! We will go after our own plans, and each of us will act by the stubbornness of his evil heart.'
13 "So thus says the LORD: Ask among the nations: who has heard things like these? A most horrible thing the virgin Israel has done.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Are the cold, flowing waters from afar plucked up?
15 Yet my people have forgotten me; they make offerings to nothingness. They have been made to stumble in their ways, the age-old paths, to walk on byways, a road not built up,
16 to make their land a horror, a thing to hiss at forever; all who pass by it will be appalled and shake their heads.
17 Like the east wind I will scatter them before the enemy; my back and not my face I will show them in the day of their disaster."
18 And they said, "Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for law will not be lost from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue and not heed any of his words."
19 Heed me, O LORD, and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
20 Is evil to be paid back for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, to turn your wrath from them.
21 So hand their sons over to famine, and pour them out by the power of the sword. Let their wives be bereaved and widowed, let their men be slain by death, their young men struck by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses when you bring a raiding band upon them suddenly; for they have dug a pit to catch me and hidden traps for my feet.
23 But you, LORD, know all their counsel against me for death. Do not make atonement for their iniquity, and do not wipe out their sin from before you; let them be made to stumble before you; in the time of your anger deal with them.