¶ This is another communication, that GOD had with Ieremy, saying:
Arise, and go down in to the Potter's house, and there shall I tell thee more of my mind:
Now when I came to the Potter's house, I found him making his work upon a wheel.
The vessel that the Potter made of clay, brake among his hands: So he began anew, and made another vessel, according to his mind.
Then said the LORD thus unto me:
May not I do with you, as this Potter doth, O ye house of Israel? sayeth the LORD. Behold, ye house of Israel: ye are in my hand, even as the clay in the Potter's hand.
When I take in hand to root out, to destroy, or to waste away any people or kingdom:
if that people (against whom I have thus devised) convert from their wickedness: Immediately, I repent of the plague, that I devised to bring upon them.
Again. When I take in hand, to build, or to plant a people or a kingdom:
if the same people do evil before me, and hear not my voice: Immediately, I repent of the good, that I devised to do for them.
¶ Speak now therefore unto whole Iuda, and to them that dwell at Ierusalem: Thus sayeth the LORD: Behold, I am devising a plague for you, and am taking a thing in hand against you. Therefore let every man turn from his evil way, take upon you the thing that is good, and do right.
But they say: No more of this, we will follow our own imaginations, and do every man according to the wilfulness of his own mind.
Therefore thus sayeth the LORD: Ask among the Heathen, if any man hath heard such horrible things, as the Daughter of Sion hath done.
Shall not the snow (that melteth upon the stony rocks of Libanus) moisten the fields? Or may the springs of waters be so graven away, that they run no more, give moistness, nor make fruitful?
But my people hath so forgotten me, that they have made sacrifice unto vain gods. And while they followed their own ways they are come out of the high street, and gone in to a foot way not used to be trodden.
Where thorow they have brought their land into an everlasting wilderness and scorn: So that whosoever traveleth thereby, shall be abashed, and wag their heads.
With an East wind will I scatter them, before their enemies. And when their destruction cometh, I will turn my back upon them, but not my face.
¶ Then said they: come, let us imagine something against this Ieremy. Yea this did even the priests, to whom the law was committed: the Senators, that were the wisest: and the prophets, which wanted not the word of God. Come (say they) let us cut out his tongue, and let us not regard his words.
Consider me, O LORD, and hear the voice of mine enemies.
Do they not recompense evil for good, when they dig a pit for my soul? Remember, how that I stood before thee, to speak for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.
Therefore let their children die of hunger, and let them be oppressed with the sword. Let their wives be robbed of their children, and become widows: let their husbands be slain, let their young men be killed with the sword in the field.
Let the noise be heard out of their houses, when the murderer cometh suddenly upon them: For they have digged a pit to take me, and laid snares for my feet.
Yet LORD, thou knowest all their counsel, that they have devised, to slay me. And therefore forgive them not their wickedness, and let not their sin be put out of thy sight: but let them be judged before thee as the guilty: This shalt thou do unto them in the time of thy indignation.
Praise the Everlasting Lord for His Faithful Word.