Jeremiah 18; Jeremiah 19; 2 Timothy 3

1 God told Jeremiah,

2 "Up on your feet! Go to the potter's house. When you get there, I'll tell you what I have to say."

3 So I went to the potter's house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel.

4 Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.

5 Then God's Message came to me:

6 "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?" God's Decree! "Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel.

7 At any moment I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them.

8 But if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them.

9 At another time I might decide to plant a people or country,

10 but if they don't cooperate and won't listen to me, I will think again and give up on the plans I had for them.

11 "So, tell the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem my Message: 'Danger! I'm shaping doom against you, laying plans against you. Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives.'

12 "But they'll just say, 'Why should we? What's the point? We'll live just the way we've always lived, doom or no doom.'"

13 God's Message: "Ask around. Survey the godless nations. Has anyone heard the likes of this? Virgin Israel has become a slut!

14 Does snow disappear from the Lebanon peaks? Do alpine streams run dry?

15 But my people have left me to worship the Big Lie. They've gotten off the track, the old, well-worn trail, And now bushwhack through underbrush in a tangle of roots and vines.

16 Their land's going to end up a mess - a fool's memorial to be spit on. Travelers passing through will shake their heads in disbelief.

17 I'll scatter my people before their enemies, like autumn leaves in a high wind. On their day of doom, they'll stare at my back as I walk away, catching not so much as a glimpse of my face."

18 Some of the people said, "Come on, let's cook up a plot against Jeremiah. We'll still have the priests to teach us the law, wise counselors to give us advice, and prophets to tell us what God has to say. Come on, let's discredit him so we don't have to put up with him any longer."

19 And I said to God: "God, listen to me! Just listen to what my enemies are saying.

20 Should I get paid evil for good? That's what they're doing. They've made plans to kill me! Remember all the times I stood up for them before you, speaking up for them, trying to soften your anger?

21 But enough! Let their children starve! Let them be massacred in battle! Let their wives be childless and widowed, their friends die and their proud young men be killed.

22 Let cries of panic sound from their homes as you surprise them with war parties! They're all set to lynch me. The noose is practically around my neck!

23 But you know all this, God. You know they're determined to kill me. Don't whitewash their crimes, don't overlook a single sin! Round the bunch of them up before you. Strike while the iron of your anger is hot!"

1 God said to me, "Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests

2 and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside the Potsherd Gate, and preach there what I tell you.

3 "Say, 'Listen to God's Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I'm about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring!

4 Doom - because they've walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom - because they have massacred innocent people.

5 Doom - because they've built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at!

6 "'And so it's pay day, and soon' - God's Decree! - 'this place will no longer be known as Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Massacre Meadows.

7 I'm canceling all the plans Judah and Jerusalem had for this place, and I'll have them killed by their enemies. I'll stack their dead bodies to be eaten by carrion crows and wild dogs.

8 I'll turn this city into such a museum of atrocities that anyone coming near will be shocked speechless by the savage brutality.

9 The people will turn into cannibals. Dehumanized by the pressure of the enemy siege, they'll eat their own children! Yes, they'll eat one another, family and friends alike.'

10 "Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you.

11 Then say, 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They'll bury bodies here in Topheth until there's no more room.

12 And the whole city will become a Topheth.

13 The city will be turned by people and kings alike into a center for worshiping the star gods and goddesses, turned into an open grave, the whole city an open grave, stinking like a sewer, like Topheth.'"

14 Then Jeremiah left Topheth, where God had sent him to preach the sermon, and took his stand in the court of God's Temple and said to the people,

15 "This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies to you: 'Warning! Danger! I'm bringing down on this city and all the surrounding towns the doom that I have pronounced. They're set in their ways and won't budge. They refuse to do a thing I say.'"

1 Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead.

2 As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse,

3 dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical,

4 treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God.

5 They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people.

6 These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them; women who, depressed by their sinfulness, take up with every new religious fad that calls itself "truth."

7 They get exploited every time and never really learn.

8 These men are like those old Egyptian frauds Jannes and Jambres, who challenged Moses. They were rejects from the faith, twisted in their thinking, defying truth itself.

9 But nothing will come of these latest impostors. Everyone will see through them, just as people saw through that Egyptian hoax.

10 You've been a good apprentice to me, a part of my teaching, my manner of life, direction, faith, steadiness, love, patience,

11 troubles, sufferings - suffering along with me in all the grief I had to put up with in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. And you also well know that God rescued me!

12 Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble; there's no getting around it.

13 Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They're as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.

14 But don't let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers -

15 why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother's milk! There's nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

16 Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another - showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.

17 Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.