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18. At the Potter's House

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

⁵ Then the word of the LORD came to me. ⁶ He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. ⁷ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, ⁸ and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. ⁹ And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, ¹⁰ and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

¹¹ “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ ¹² But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’”

¹³ Therefore this is what the LORD says:

   “Inquire among the nations:
   Who has ever heard anything like this?
A most horrible thing has been done
   by Virgin Israel.
¹⁴ Does the snow of Lebanon
   ever vanish from its rocky slopes?
Do its cool waters from distant sources
   ever stop flowing? The meaning of the Hebrew for this sentence is uncertain.
¹⁵ Yet my people have forgotten me;
   they burn incense to worthless idols,
which made them stumble in their ways,
   in the ancient paths.
They made them walk in byways,
   on roads not built up.
¹⁶ Their land will be an object of horror
   and of lasting scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
   and will shake their heads.
¹⁷ Like a wind from the east,
   I will scatter them before their enemies;
I will show them my back and not my face
   in the day of their disaster.”

¹⁸ They said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not cease, nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let’s attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says.”

    ¹⁹ Listen to me, LORD;
   hear what my accusers are saying!
²⁰ Should good be repaid with evil?
   Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember that I stood before you
   and spoke in their behalf
   to turn your wrath away from them.
²¹ So give their children over to famine;
   hand them over to the power of the sword.
Let their wives be made childless and widows;
   let their men be put to death,
   their young men slain by the sword in battle.
²² Let a cry be heard from their houses
   when you suddenly bring invaders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
   and have hidden snares for my feet.
²³ But you, LORD, know
   all their plots to kill me.
Do not forgive their crimes
   or blot out their sins from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
   deal with them in the time of your anger.

The Prophet in this verse exaggerates the sin of his enemies, for they not only were ferocious against God, but also forgot everything humane, and wickedly assailed the Prophet himself. Impiety is indeed more detestable than inhumanity, inasmuch as God is far above all mortals; but inhumanity has in it more basenes, for it is, so to speak, more gross and more evident. The ungodly often hide their perfidy; but when they come to act towards men, then it appears immediately what they are. Hence the Prophet, having made known the impiety of his enemies, now adds, that they, when tried by the judgment of men, were found to be wholly intolerable, for they rendered a shameful reward to an innocent man who was sedulous in securing their salvation. We now understand the meaning of the Prophet.

Though it often happens that evil is rendered for good, and ingratitude is a common vice, yet nature itself detests ingratitude: hence it has been said that there is no law against the ungrateful, because ingratitude seems a monstrous thing. As then nature dictates that merit deserves a reward, and this ought to be a fixed principle in the hearts of all, the Prophet reasons according to the common sense and judgment of all mankind.

Shall evil, he says, be rendered for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul? ²⁰⁷²⁰⁷     It is better to render these lines like the Septuagint and Vulgate, —
   Is not evil rendered for good?
For they have dug a pit for my soul.
   Or thus, —
   Should evil be rendered for good? —
For they have dug a pit for me.
   So should “soul” be rendered here and in many other places. There is here an allusion to the practice of digging pits to take wild beasts. — Ed. and yet I prayed for them, and endeavored to turn away the wrath of God. Since I have set myself humbly to pray for their salvation, how great is their savageness and inhumanity in persecuting me? But as he saw that it was vain to speak to the deaf, he again appeals to God as a witness to his integrity; Remember, he says, that I stood before thy face to speak for them; as though he had said, “Even if malignity prevent men to own what I am, and how I have conducted myself towards them, God will be to me a sufficient witness, and I shall be satisfied with his judgment.” It then follows —