Jeremiah 43:9

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

³Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels. ⁴When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵Then the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ⁶“House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. ⁷At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it, ⁸if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them. ⁹At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, ¹⁰if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they don’t obey my voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would benefit them.

¹¹“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘The LORD says: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a plan against you. Everyone return from his evil way now, and amend your ways and your doings.”’ ¹²But they say, ‘It is in vain; for we will walk after our own plans, and we will each follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

⁶³It will be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. ⁶⁴Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

¹Thus said the LORD, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests; ²and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you. ³Say, ‘Hear the LORD’s word, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle. ⁴Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods that they didn’t know—they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah—and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind. ⁶Therefore, behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.

⁷“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ⁸I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. ⁹I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

¹⁰“Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you, ¹¹and shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. ¹²This is what I will do to this place,” says the LORD, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky and have 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 court of the LORD’s house, and said to all the people: ¹⁵“The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’”

³¹He brought out the people who were in it, and put them to work under saws, under iron picks, under axes of iron, and made them go to the brick kiln; and he did so to all the cities of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

²⁹At that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the way. Now Ahijah had clad himself with a new garment; and the two of them were alone in the field. ³⁰Ahijah took the new garment that was on him, and tore it in twelve pieces. ³¹He said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces; for the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to you

¹⁴and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

¹The LORD said to me, “Go, and buy yourself a linen belt, and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water.”

²So I bought a belt according to the LORD’s word, and put it on my waist.

³The LORD’s word came to me the second time, saying, ⁴“Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”

⁵So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.

⁶After many days, the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there.”

⁷Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was ruined. It was profitable for nothing.

⁸Then the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ⁹“The LORD says, ‘In this way I will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. ¹⁰This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and have gone after other gods to serve them and to worship them, will even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing. ¹¹For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me,’ says the LORD; ‘that they may be to me for a people, for a name, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’

¹¹Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”

²¹A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all.

¹⁴Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.