Jeremiah at the Potter's House

¹The Lord said to me,

²“Go down to the potter's house, where I will give you my message.”

³So I went there and saw the potter working at his wheel.

⁴Whenever a piece of pottery turned out imperfect, he would take the clay and make it into something else.

⁵Then the Lord said to me,

⁶“Don't I have the right to do with you people of Israel what the potter did with the clay? You are in my hands just like clay in the potter's hands.

⁷If at any time I say that I am going to uproot, break down, or destroy any nation or kingdom,

⁸but then that nation turns from its evil, I will not do what I said I would.

⁹On the other hand, if I say that I am going to plant or build up any nation or kingdom,

¹⁰but then that nation disobeys me and does evil, I will not do what I said I would.

¹¹Now then, tell the people of Judah and of Jerusalem that I am making plans against them and getting ready to punish them. Tell them to stop living sinful lives—to change their ways and the things they are doing.

¹²They will answer, ‘No, why should we? We will all be just as stubborn and evil as we want to be.’”

The People Reject the Lord

¹³The Lord says, “Ask every nation if such a thing has ever happened before. The people of Israel have done a terrible thing!

¹⁴Are Lebanon's rocky heights ever without snow? Do its cool mountain streams ever run dry?

¹⁵Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to idols. They have stumbled in the way they should go; they no longer follow the old ways; they walk on unmarked paths.

¹⁶They have made this land a thing of horror, to be despised forever. All who pass by will be shocked at what they see; they will shake their heads in amazement.

¹⁷I will scatter my people before their enemies, like dust blown by the east wind. I will turn my back on them; I will not help them when the disaster comes.”

A Plot against Jeremiah

¹⁸Then the people said, “Let's do something about Jeremiah! There will always be priests to instruct us, the wise to give us counsel, and prophets to proclaim God's message. Let's bring charges against him and stop listening to what he says.”

¹⁹So I prayed, “Lord, hear what I am saying and listen to what my enemies are saying about me.

²⁰Is evil the payment for good? Yet they have dug a pit for me to fall in. Remember how I came to you and spoke on their behalf, so that you would not deal with them in anger.

²¹But now, Lord, let their children starve to death; let them be killed in war. Let the women lose their husbands and children; let the men die of disease and the young men be killed in battle.

²²Send a mob to plunder their homes without warning; make them cry out in terror. They have dug a pit for me to fall in and have set traps to catch me.

²³But, Lord, you know all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their evil or pardon their sin. Throw them down in defeat and deal with them while you are angry.”

The Broken Jar

¹The Lord told me to go and buy a clay jar. He also told me to take some of the elders of the people and some of the older priests,

²and to go through Potsherd Gate out to Hinnom Valley. There I was to proclaim the message that he would give me.

³The Lord told me to say, “Kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem, listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, have to say. I am going to bring such a disaster on this place that everyone who hears about it will be stunned.

⁴I am going to do this because the people have abandoned me and defiled this place by offering sacrifices here to other gods—gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known anything about. They have filled this place with the blood of innocent people,

⁵and they have built altars for Baal in order to burn their children in the fire as sacrifices. I never commanded them to do this; it never even entered my mind.

⁶So then, the time will come when this place will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley. Instead, it will be known as Slaughter Valley.

⁷In this place I will frustrate all the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will let their enemies triumph over them and kill them in battle. I will give their corpses to the birds and the wild animals as food.

⁸I will bring such terrible destruction on this city that everyone who passes by will be shocked and amazed.

⁹The enemy will surround the city and try to kill its people. The siege will be so terrible that the people inside the city will eat one another and even their own children.”

¹⁰Then the Lord told me to break the jar in front of those who had gone with me

¹¹and to tell them that the Lord Almighty had said, “I will break this people and this city, and it will be like this broken clay jar that cannot be put together again. People will bury their dead even in Topheth because there will be nowhere else to bury them.

¹²I promise that I will make this city and its inhabitants like Topheth.

¹³The houses of Jerusalem, the houses of the kings of Judah, and indeed all the houses on whose roofs incense has been burned to the stars and where wine has been poured out as an offering to other gods—they will all be as unclean as Topheth.”

¹⁴Then I left Topheth, where the Lord had sent me to proclaim his message. I went and stood in the court of the Temple and told all the people

¹⁵that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, “I am going to bring on this city and on every nearby town all the punishment that I said I would, because you are stubborn and will not listen to what I say.”

The Stream Flowing from the Temple

¹The man led me back to the entrance of the Temple. Water was coming out from under the entrance and flowing east, the direction the Temple faced. It was flowing down from under the south part of the Temple past the south side of the altar.

²The man then took me out of the Temple area by way of the north gate and led me around to the gate that faces east. A small stream of water was flowing out at the south side of the gate.

³With his measuring rod the man measured 560 yards downstream to the east and told me to wade through the stream there. The water came only to my ankles.

⁴Then he measured another 560 yards, and the water came up to my knees. Another 560 yards farther down, the water was up to my waist.

⁵He measured 560 yards more, and there the stream was so deep I could not wade through it. It was too deep to cross except by swimming.

⁶He said to me, “Mortal man, note all this carefully.” Then the man took me back to the riverbank,

⁷and when I got there, I saw that there were very many trees on each bank.

⁸He said to me, “This water flows through the land to the east and down into the Jordan Valley and to the Dead Sea. When it flows into the Dead Sea, it replaces the salt water of that sea with fresh water.

⁹Wherever the stream flows, there will be all kinds of animals and fish. The stream will make the water of the Dead Sea fresh, and wherever it flows, it will bring life.

¹⁰From the Springs of Engedi all the way to the Springs of Eneglaim, there will be fishermen on the shore of the sea, and they will spread out their nets there to dry. There will be as many different kinds of fish there as there are in the Mediterranean Sea.

¹¹But the water in the marshes and ponds along the shore will not be made fresh. They will remain there as a source of salt.

¹²On each bank of the stream all kinds of trees will grow to provide food. Their leaves will never wither, and they will never stop bearing fruit. They will have fresh fruit every month, because they are watered by the stream that flows from the Temple. The trees will provide food, and their leaves will be used for healing people.”

The Boundaries of the Land

¹³The Sovereign Lord said, “These are the boundaries of the land that is to be divided among the twelve tribes, with the tribe of Joseph receiving two sections.

¹⁴I solemnly promised your ancestors that I would give them possession of this land; now divide it equally among you.

¹⁵“The northern boundary runs eastward from the Mediterranean Sea to the city of Hethlon, to Hamath Pass, to the city of Zedad,

¹⁶to the cities of Berothah and Sibraim (they are located between the territory of the kingdom of Damascus and that of the kingdom of Hamath), and to the city of Ticon (located by the border of the district of Hauran).

¹⁷So the northern boundary runs from the Mediterranean eastward to Enon City, with the border regions of Damascus and Hamath to the north of it.

¹⁸“The eastern boundary runs south from a point between the territory of Damascus and that of Hauran, with the Jordan River forming the boundary between the land of Israel on the west and Gilead on the east, as far as Tamar on the Dead Sea.

¹⁹“The southern boundary runs southwest from Tamar to the oasis of Kadesh Meribah and then northwest along the Egyptian border to the Mediterranean Sea.

²⁰“The western boundary is formed by the Mediterranean and runs north to a point west of Hamath Pass.

²¹“Divide this land among your tribes;

²²it is to be your permanent possession. The foreigners who are living among you and who have had children born here are also to receive their share of the land when you divide it. They are to be treated like full Israelite citizens and are to draw lots for shares of the land along with the tribes of Israel.

²³All foreign residents will receive their share with the people of the tribe among whom they are living. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

The Division of the Land among the Tribes

^1-7The northern boundary of the land runs eastward from the Mediterranean Sea to the city of Hethlon, to Hamath Pass, to Enon City, to the boundary between the kingdoms of Damascus and Hamath. Each tribe is to receive one section of land extending from the eastern boundary west to the Mediterranean Sea, in the following order from north to south: Dan Asher Naphtali Manasseh Ephraim Reuben Judah

The Special Section in the Center of the Land

⁸The next section of the land is to be set apart for special use. It is to be 10 miles wide from north to south, and the same length from east to west as the sections given to the tribes. The Temple will be located within this section.

⁹In the center of this section, a special area 10 miles by 8 miles is to be dedicated to the Lord.

¹⁰The priests are to have a portion of this holy area. From east to west their portion is to measure 10 miles, and from north to south, 4 miles. The Temple of the Lord is to be located in the middle of this area.

¹¹This holy area is to be for the priests who are descendants of Zadok. They served me faithfully and did not join the rest of the Israelites in doing wrong, as the other members of the tribe of Levi did.

¹²So they are to have a special area next to the area belonging to the Levites, and it will be the holiest of all.

¹³The Levites also are to have a special area, south of that of the priests. It too is to be 10 miles from east to west, by 4 miles from north to south.

¹⁴The area dedicated to the Lord is the best part of all the land, and none of it may be sold or exchanged or transferred to anyone else. It is holy and belongs to the Lord.

¹⁵The part of the special area that is left, 10 miles by 2 miles, is not holy, but is for the general use of the people. They may live there and use the land. The city is to be in the center of it,

¹⁶and it will be a square, 2,520 yards on each side.

¹⁷All around the city on each side there will be an open space 140 yards across.

¹⁸The land that is left after the city has been built in the area immediately to the south of the holy area—4 miles by 2 miles on the east and 4 miles by 2 miles on the west—is to be used as farmland by the people who live in the city.

¹⁹Anyone who lives in the city, no matter which tribe he comes from, may farm that land.

²⁰And so the total area in the center of the section which was set apart will be a square measuring 10 miles on each side, and it will include the area occupied by the city.

^21-22To the east and to the west of this area which contains the Temple, the priests' land, the Levites' land, and the city, the remaining land belongs to the ruling prince. It reaches east to the eastern boundary and west to the Mediterranean Sea, and is bounded on the north by the section belonging to Judah and on the south by the one belonging to Benjamin.

Land for the Other Tribes

^23-27South of this special section, each of the remaining tribes is to receive one section of land running from the eastern boundary west to the Mediterranean Sea, in the following order from north to south: Benjamin Simeon Issachar Zebulun Gad

²⁸On the south side of the portion given to the tribe of Gad, the boundary runs southwest from Tamar to the oasis of Kadesh, and then northwest along the Egyptian border to the Mediterranean Sea.

²⁹The Sovereign Lord said, “That is the way the land is to be divided into sections for the tribes of Israel to possess.”

The Gates of Jerusalem

^30-34There are twelve entrances to the city of Jerusalem. Each of the four walls measures 2,520 yards and has three gates in it, each named for one of the tribes. The gates in the north wall are named for Reuben, Judah, and Levi; those in the east wall, for Joseph, Benjamin, and Dan; those in the south wall, for Simeon, Issachar, and Zebulun; and those in the west wall are named for Gad, Asher, and Naphtali.

³⁵The total length of the wall on all four sides of the city is 10,080 yards. The name of the city from now on will be “The-Lord-Is-Here!”

²¹Stupid people are happy with their foolishness, but the wise will do what is right.

²²Get all the advice you can, and you will succeed; without it you will fail.

²³What a joy it is to find just the right word for the right occasion!

²⁴Wise people walk the road that leads upward to life, not the road that leads downward to death.