Jeremiah 18; Jeremiah 19; 2 Timothy 3

1 The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

2 Arise, and go down into the potter’s house, and there thou shalt hear my words.

3 And I went down into the potter’s house, and behold he was doing a work on the wheel.

4 And the vessel was broken which he was making of clay with his hands: and turning he made another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make it.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

6 Cannot I do with you, as this potter, O house of Israel, saith the Lord? behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

7 I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it.

8 If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them.

9 And I will suddenly speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build up and plant it.

10 If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it.

11 Now therefore tell the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: let every man of you return from his evil way, and make ye your ways and your doings good.

12 And they said; We have no hopes: for we will go after our own thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his evil heart.

13 Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who hath heard such horrible things, as the virgin of Israel hath done to excess?

14 Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can the cold waters that gush out and run down, be taken away?

15 Because my people have forgotten me, sacrificing in vain, and stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk by them in a way not trodden:

16 That their land might be given up to desolation, and to a perpetual hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and wag his head.

17 As a burning wind will I scatter them before the enemy: I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction.

18 And they said: Come, and let us invent devices against Jeremias: for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words.

19 Give heed to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries.

20 Shall evil be rendered for good, because they have digged a pit for my soul? Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for them, and to turn away thy indignation from them.

21 Therefore deliver up their children to famine, and bring them into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of children and widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be stabbed with the sword in battle.

22 Let a cry be heard out of their houses: for thou shalt bring the robber upon them suddenly: because they have digged a pit to take me, and have hid snares for my feet.

23 But thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me unto death: not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from thy sight: let them be overthrown before thy eyes, in the time of thy wrath do thou destroy them.

1 Thus saith the Lord: Go, and take a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests:

2 And go forth into the valley of the son of Ennom, which is by the entry of the earthen gate: and there thou shalt proclaim the words that I shall tell thee.

3 And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, O ye kings of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle:

4 Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place:and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Juda: and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents.

5 And they have built the high places of Baalim, to burn their children with fire for a holocaust to Baalim: which I did not command, nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind.

6 Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom, but the valley of slaughter.

7 And I will defeat the counsel of Juda and of Jerusalem in this place: and I will destroy them with the sword in the sight of their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and I will give their carcasses to be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth.

8 And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

9 And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons, and with the flesh of their daughters: and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege, and in the distress wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

10 And thou shalt break the bottle in the sight of the men that shall go with thee.

11 And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people, and this city, as the potter’s vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again: and they shall be buried in Topheth, because there is no other place to bury in.

12 Thus will I do to this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof: and I will make this city as Topheth.

13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Juda shall be unclean as the place of Topheth: all the houses upon whose roofs they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings to strange gods.

14 Then Jeremias came from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord, and said to all the people:

15 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring in upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof all the evils that I have spoken against it: because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

1 Know also this, that in the last days shall come dangerous times.

2 Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked,

3 Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,

4 Traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasure more than of God:

5 Having an appearance indeed of godliness but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.

6 For of these sort are they who creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, who are led away with divers desires:

7 Ever learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth.

8 Now as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith.

9 But they shall proceed no farther: for their folly shall be manifest to all men, as theirs also was.

10 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, patience,

11 Persecutions, afflictions: such as came upon me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra: what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me.

12 And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

13 But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse: erring, and driving into error,

14 But continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and which have been committed to thee. Knowing of whom thou hast learned them:

15 And because from thy infancy thou hast known the holy scriptures which can instruct thee to salvation by the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

16 All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.