Early morning in a potter’s yard below the city wall: rows of drying clay jars on the ground, a low rounded kiln, a heap of wet clay under a cloth, no one there.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 18

The book doesn’t date this oracle. What would it look like to let God reshape something in you that went wrong?

23 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessionsChapter 18
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Potter and the Clay

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

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God

Morning on a stony path going down from a city gate into the valley, kiln smoke rising among the workshops below.

“Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will give you My message.”

Jeremiah

In a dim potter’s shed, a Judean potter sits side-on at a low stone kick wheel, raising wet red clay into a jar, unfired pots on shelves behind him.

So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel.

Jeremiah

But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.

God

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?

God

Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

Jeremiah 18:6

God

At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.

God

But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.

God

And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom, and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it.

God

Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.’

God

But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

God

Therefore this is what the LORD says:

“Inquire among the nations:

Who has ever heard things like these?

Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.

God

Spring on the high Lebanon range: snow lying on rocky slopes above the tree line, cold streams running down through boulders and dark cedars.

Does the snow of Lebanon

ever leave its rocky slopes?

Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance

ever run dry?

God

Morning in the Judean hills: an old, broad, well-trodden road along a ridge, and a rough rutted side-track breaking off into thorn scrub and rocks.

Yet My people have forgotten Me.

They burn incense to worthless idols

that make them stumble in their ways,

leaving the ancient roads

to walk on rutted bypaths

instead of on the highway.

God

Abandoned terraces gone to thorn below a broken village wall with empty doorways; far off on the road, two travelers have stopped to look.

They have made their land a desolation,

a perpetual object of scorn;

all who pass by will be appalled

and shake their heads.

God

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah watched the potter at work before the LORD said a word. Look again at what happened on the wheel in 18:4.

What did the potter do when the vessel became flawed in his hand?

Clay in His hand

Whiteboard

While the clay is soft, the Potter reshapes. The tragedy is clay that refuses Him.

Another Plot against Jeremiah

Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”

Jeremiah

Attend to me, O LORD.

Hear what my accusers are saying!

Jeremiah

Evening on a hill path: a hunter’s pit dug across it and roofed over with brushwood and loose earth, a cord snare hidden in the grass beside it.

Should good be repaid with evil?

Yet they have dug a pit for me.

Remember how I stood before You

to speak good on their behalf,

to turn Your wrath from them.

Jeremiah

Therefore, hand their children over to famine;

pour out the power of the sword upon them.

Let their wives become childless and widowed;

let their husbands be slain by disease,

their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

Jeremiah

Let a cry be heard from their houses

when You suddenly bring raiders against them,

for they have dug a pit to capture me

and have hidden snares for my feet.

Jeremiah

But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me.

Do not wipe out their guilt

or blot out their sin from Your sight.

Let them be overthrown before You;

deal with them in the time of Your anger.

Pray

LORD, I am clay in Your hand. Where I am spoiled, form me again as seems best to You. When others dig pits for me, I leave them with You. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 18

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A verse to carry with you

Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

Jeremiah 18:6

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