| 18:1 | This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD |
| 18:2 | "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message."
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| 18:3 | So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel.
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| 18:4 | 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.
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| 18:5 | Then the word of the LORD came to me |
| 18:6 | "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.
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| 18:7 | If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed,
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| 18:8 | and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.
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| 18:9 | And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted,
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| 18:10 | and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
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| 18:11 | "Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, "This is what the LORD says |
| 18:12 | But they will reply, "It's no use. We will continue with our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.""
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| 18:13 | Therefore this is what the LORD says |
| 18:14 | Does the snow of Lebanon ever vanish from its rocky slopes? Do its cool waters from distant sources ever cease to flow?
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| 18:15 | Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols, which made them stumble in their ways and in the ancient paths. They made them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up.
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| 18:16 | Their land will be laid waste, an object of lasting scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will shake their heads.
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| 18:17 | Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before their enemies; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster."
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| 18:18 | 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."
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| 18:19 | Listen to me, O LORD; hear what my accusers are saying!
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| 18:20 | Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember that I stood before you and spoke in their behalf to turn your wrath away from them.
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| 18:21 | 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.
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| 18:22 | Let a cry be heard from their houses when you suddenly bring invaders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet.
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| 18:23 | But you know, O LORD, all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.
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| 19:1 | This is what the LORD says |
| 19:2 | and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you,
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| 19:3 | and say, "Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says |
| 19:4 | For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
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| 19:5 | They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal-- something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.
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| 19:6 | 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.
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| 19:7 | ""In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.
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| 19:8 | I will devastate this city and make it an object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds.
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| 19:9 | I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives."
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| 19:10 | "Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching,
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| 19:11 | and say to them, "This is what the LORD Almighty says |
| 19:12 | This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.
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| 19:13 | The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth-- all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.""
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| 19:14 | Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the LORD's temple and said to all the people,
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| 19:15 | "This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says |
| 3:1 | But mark this |
| 3:2 | People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
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| 3:3 | without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
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| 3:4 | treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--
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| 3:5 | having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
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| 3:6 | They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,
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| 3:7 | always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.
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| 3:8 | Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth-- men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.
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| 3:9 | But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
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| 3:10 | You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
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| 3:11 | persecutions, sufferings-- what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
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| 3:12 | In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
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| 3:13 | while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
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| 3:14 | But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
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| 3:15 | and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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| 3:16 | All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
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| 3:17 | so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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