Jeremiah 18
Israel, clay in the hands of an angry God
Jeremiah visits a pottery shop
1The LORD told me, 2“Go down to the potter’s workshop. I’ll tell you more after you get there.”3When I arrived, the potter was shaping clay on the pottery wheel. 4The pot didn’t shape up the way he wanted. So he crushed [1] it down and reworked it into something he liked. 5The LORD told me:
6Do you see what this potter did to the clay? What would stop me from doing the same thing to Israel? Nothing at all. Israel, you are clay in the hands of the LORD.
God: I made you and I can end you
7At a moment’s notice, I can decide to crush a nation and destroy it. 8But I can also reverse that decision if people reverse their evil behavior and start doing what’s right.9I can also decide to create a new nation. 10And if that nation starts to ignore me and the laws I’ve given them, I can throw away my plans to build them up.
11Jeremiah, I want you to deliver this message to the citizens of Jerusalem and to all the rest of Judah. Tell them the LORD says this:
Listen to me. I am a potter and I’m working on one big pot of trouble for you. Stop doing what you know is wrong. Start doing what is right and good.
12But they won’t listen. They’ll say, “We admit it. We’re stubborn, no good, and mean to the bone. That’s who we are and that’s who we’re gonna be.”
The LORD’s poetic justice
13The LORD says to ask the nations:
Whoever heard of anything like this,
An innocent, virgin [2] nation like Israel
Doing something so despicable. [3]
Do their icy steams run dry
And do their cold-water springs ever fail? [4]
15But my people forgot me.
They sacrifice to imaginary gods.
They’ve lost their way,
And strayed onto old trails to nowhere.
They’re not headed my way anymore.
16They’re the ones destroying their homeland.
People will ridicule this land and terrorize it,
Shaking their heads at the horrible sight.
17On the day disaster strikes,
I’ll show Judah nothing but my back
And a strong east [5] wind that knocks them down
And scatters them out of here when their enemies arrive.
”Let’s get Jeremiah”
18 Some people said, “Okay, let’s ignore what this guy says. But we’re going to have to stop him because he won’t shut up. He keeps teaching, leading worship as a priest, offering wise advice, and delivering the LORD’s messages as a prophet.” 19Please LORD, listen to my enemies.Do you hear what they’re saying about me?
20Do I deserve this,
Getting badmouthed for good behavior?
They dug a pit to jail me,
The person who defended them
And tried to talk you out of punishing them.
Jeremiah wants revenge
21So, go ahead. Starve their kids in a drought.
Throw them onto swords.
Turn their ladies into lonely widows without a kid.
Kill the men with disease,
And their young people in a sword fight.
When raiders charge into town.
For they set traps to catch me
And tried to tie me up.
23You know their plans to kill me.
Don’t forgive them for that sin.
Don’t erase their guilt.
Trip, drop, and drag them to judgment.
Then punish them went you’re angry. [6]
Footnotes
“Crushed” is implied.
Virgin may have brought to mind at least two images. First, like a woman promised in marriage to a man, Israel should have remained devoted to one God, not to idols common throughout the region. Second, it also hints of the sexual worship rituals that some pagan religions seemed to have practiced. Worshipers reportedly had sex with shrine priests and prostitutes as an act of worship and to entertain the gods. That could explain why so many Hebrew men traveling with Moses to the Promised Land acted like their dreams had come true when they arrived in the nation of Moab, east of what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories. “Some of their men had sex with women from Moab…The men took part in the sacrifices and bowed to Moab’s gods” (Numbers 25:1-2).
Despicable seems to compare the worship of idols to a bride having sex with a man to whom she is neither married nor engaged. Judah had stopped worshiping God and had taken to new gods.
No. No. And no, to all three questions. The point is that nature is dependable. Judah is not (18:15).
“East wind” reads like it’s referring to the invading Babylonian army that came from the east, in what is now Iraq. Babylonians executed many people of Judah and deported many others to Babylon to keep them from resurrecting the Israelite nation.
Prophets sometimes sounded like Jesus talking to Pharisees. See Matthew 23:1-36, a lot of stern talk.
Discussion Questions
- Sorry, there are currently no questions for this chapter.
Maps/Guides
