Jeremiah's Signs: The Belt, the Potter and the Jar

Jeremiah 13

¹ Yahweh said to me, “Go, and buy yourself a linen belt, and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water.”

² So I bought a belt according to Yahweh’s word, and put it on my waist.

³ Yahweh’s word came to me the second time, saying,

⁴ “Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”

⁵ So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me.

⁶ After many days, Yahweh said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there.”

⁷ Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was ruined. It was profitable for nothing.

⁸ Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

⁹ “Yahweh says, ‘In this way I will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and have gone after other gods to serve them and to worship them, will even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing.

¹¹ For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me,’ says Yahweh; ‘that they may be to me for a people, for a name, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’

Jeremiah 18

¹ The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,

² “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.”

³ Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels.

⁴ When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵ Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

⁶ “House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says Yahweh. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.

⁷ At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it,

⁸ if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.

⁹ At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it,

¹⁰ if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they don’t obey my voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would benefit them.

¹¹ “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a plan against you. Everyone return from his evil way now, and amend your ways and your doings.” ’

¹² But they say, ‘It is in vain; for we will walk after our own plans, and we will each follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ”

¹³ Therefore Yahweh says: “Ask now among the nations, ‘Who has heard such things?’ The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.

¹⁴ Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Will the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?

¹⁵ For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to false gods. They have been made to stumble in their ways in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up,

¹⁶ to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

¹⁷ I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Jeremiah 19

¹ Thus said Yahweh, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests;

² and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you.

³ Say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.

⁴ Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods that they didn’t know—they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah—and have filled this place with the blood of innocents,

⁵ and have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind.

⁶ Therefore, behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.

⁷ “ ‘ “I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.

⁸ I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

⁹ I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.” ’

¹⁰ “Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you,

¹¹ and shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury.

¹² This is what I will do to this place,” says Yahweh, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth.

¹³ The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”

¹⁴ Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of Yahweh’s house, and said to all the people:

¹⁵ “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’ ”