Jeremiah 18 — Septuagint (LXX)

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

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

So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, working at the wheel.

When the vessel he was shaping from the clay became flawed in the potter's hands, he reworked it into a different vessel, whatever seemed right to the potter to make.

Then the word of the LORD came to me:

Can I not do with you as this potter does, O house of Israel? — declares the LORD. Like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

At one moment I may speak against a nation or a kingdom, to uproot, to tear down, and to destroy.

If that nation turns from the evil I have spoken against, then I will relent from the disaster I had planned to bring upon it.

And at another moment I may speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to build and to plant.

But if it does what is evil in my sight by not obeying my voice, then I will relent from the good I had intended to do for it.

Now then, speak to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: This is what the LORD says — I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Turn back, each one of you, from your evil way, and set right your ways and your deeds.

But they say, 'It is hopeless! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'

Therefore, this is what the LORD says: Ask among the nations — who has heard anything like this? The virgin Israel has done something utterly appalling.

Does the snow vanish from the rocky crags of Lebanon? Do the cold, flowing waters from distant sources ever dry up?

Yet my people have forgotten me. They burn incense to worthless things. They have been made to stumble from their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk on side trails, on an ungraded road —

making their land a desolation, an object of perpetual scorn. Everyone who passes by it will be appalled and shake his head.

Like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back, not my face, on the day of their disaster.

Then they said, 'Come, let us plot schemes against Jeremiah — for instruction will never cease from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us attack him with the tongue and pay no attention to any of his words.'

Pay attention to me, LORD, and hear the voice of my accusers!

Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.

Therefore, hand their children over to famine and pour them out to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their husbands be struck down by death, their young men cut down by the sword in battle.

Let a scream be heard from their houses when you bring raiders upon them without warning — for they have dug a pit to trap me and hidden snares for my feet.

But you, LORD, know all their plotting against me to kill me. Do not atone for their iniquity, and do not wipe out their sin from your sight. Let them be brought down before you — deal with them in the time of your anger.