Study Desk

So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.'

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

But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

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

"Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, 'This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.'

They said, "Come, let's make plans against Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not be lost, nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let's attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says."

So give their children over to famine; hand them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives be made childless and widows; let their men be put to death, their young men slain by the sword in battle.

So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD , when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long.

But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.

"Inquire now of the LORD for us because Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is attacking us. Perhaps the LORD will perform wonders for us as in times past so that he will withdraw from us."

He says, 'I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.' So he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar and decorates it in red.

"Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him.

He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD .

"So then, the days are coming," declares the LORD , "when people will no longer say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,'

And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah."

Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" declares the LORD . "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD .

But you must not mention 'the oracle of the LORD ' again, because every man's own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God.

One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

Then the LORD asked me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" "Figs," I answered. "The good ones are very good, but the poor ones are so bad they cannot be eaten."