The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV

by John MacArthur

Jeremiah 18

  The Potter and the Clay

  1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:

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

  3Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the 1wheel.

  4And the vessel that he 2made of clay was 3marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.

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

  6“O house of Israel, acan I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, bas the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!

  7“The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to cpluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it,

  8d“if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, eI will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.

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

  10“if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

  11“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. fReturn now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings ggood.” ’ ”

  God’s Warning Rejected

  12And they said, h“That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one 4obey the idictates5 of his evil heart.”

  13Therefore thus says the LORD:

  j“Ask now among the Gentiles,

  Who has heard such things?

  The virgin of Israel has done ka very horrible thing.

  14Will a man 6leave the snow water of Lebanon,

  Which comes from the rock of the field?

  Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters?

  15“Because My people have forgotten lMe,

  They have burned incense to worthless idols.

  And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways,

  From the mancient paths,

  To walk in pathways and not on a highway,

  16To make their land ndesolate and a perpetual ohissing;

  Everyone who passes by it will be astonished

  And shake his head.

  17p I will scatter them qas with an east wind before the enemy;

  r I will 7show them the back and not the face

  In the day of their calamity.”

  Jeremiah Persecuted

  18Then they said, s“Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; tfor the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”

  19Give heed to me, O LORD,

  And listen to the voice of those who contend with me!

  20u Shall evil be repaid for good?

  For they have vdug a pit for my life.

  Remember that I wstood before You

  To speak good 8for them,

  To turn away Your wrath from them.

  21Therefore xdeliver up their children to the famine,

  And pour out their blood

  By the force of the sword;

  Let their wives become widows

  And ybereaved of their children.

  Let their men be put to death,

  Their young men be slain

  By the sword in battle.

  22Let a cry be heard from their houses,

  When You bring a troop suddenly upon them;

  For they have dug a pit to take me,

  And hidden snares for my feet.

  23Yet, LORD, You know all their counsel

  Which is against me, to slay me.

  z Provide no atonement for their iniquity,

  Nor blot out their sin from Your sight;

  But let them be overthrown before You.

  Deal thus with them

  In the time of Your aanger.

  Jeremiah 19

  The Sign of the Broken Flask

  1Thus says the LORD: “Go and get a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

  2“And go out to athe Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the Potsherd Gate; and proclaim there the words that I will tell you,

  3b“and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will ctingle.

  4“Because they dhave forsaken Me and made this an alien place, because they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with ethe blood of the innocents

  5f“(they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, gwhich I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind),

  6“therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that this place shall no more be called Tophet or hthe Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

  7“And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, iand I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives; their jcorpses I will give as meat for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

  8“I will make this city kdesolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

  9“And I will cause them to eat the lflesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair.” ’

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

  11“and say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: n“Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be 1made whole again; and they shall obury them in Tophet till there is no place to bury.

  12“Thus I will do to this place,” says the LORD, “and to its inhabitants, and make this city like Tophet.

  13“And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled plike the place of Tophet, because of all the houses on whose qroofs they have burned incense to all the host of heaven, and rpoured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”

  14Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in sthe court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people,

  15“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because tthey have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words.’ ”

  Jeremiah 20

  The Word of God to Pashhur

  1Now aPashhur the son of bImmer, the priest who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.

  2Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high cgate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.

  3And it happened on the next day that Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD has not called your name Pashhur, but 1Magor-Missabib.

  4“For thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it. I will dgive all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon and slay them with the sword.

  5‘Moreover I ewill deliver all the wealth of this city, all its produce, and
all its precious things; all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies, who will plunder them, seize them, and fcarry them to Babylon.

  6‘And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. You shall go to Babylon, and there you shall die, and be buried there, you and all your friends, to whom you have gprophesied lies.’ ”

  Jeremiah’s Unpopular Ministry

  7O LORD, You 2induced me, and I was persuaded;

  h You are stronger than I, and have prevailed.

  i I am 3in derision daily;

  Everyone mocks me.

  8For when I spoke, I cried out;

  j I shouted, “Violence and plunder!”

  Because the word of the LORD was made to me

  A reproach and a derision daily.

  9Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,

  Nor speak anymore in His name.”

  But His word was in my heart like a kburning fire

  Shut up in my bones;

  I was weary of holding it back,

  And lI could not.

  10m For I heard many 4mocking:

  “Fear on every side!”

  “Report,” they say, “and we will report it!”

  n All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling, saying,

  “Perhaps he can be induced;

  Then we will prevail against him,

  And we will take our revenge on him.”

  11But the LORD is owith me as a mighty, awesome One.

  Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and will not pprevail.

  They will be greatly ashamed, for they will not prosper.

  Their qeverlasting confusion will never be forgotten.

  12But, O LORD of hosts,

  You who rtest the righteous,

  And see the 5mind and heart,

  s Let me see Your vengeance on them;

  For I have pleaded my cause before You.

  13Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD!

  For tHe has delivered the life of the poor

  From the hand of evildoers.

  14u Cursed be the day in which I was born!

  Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!

  15Let the man be cursed

  Who brought news to my father, saying,

  “A male child has been born to you!”

  Making him very glad.

  16And let that man be like the cities

  Which the LORD voverthrew, and did not relent;

  Let him whear the cry in the morning

  And the shouting at noon,

  17x Because he did not kill me from the womb,

  That my mother might have been my grave,

  And her womb always enlarged with me.

  18y Why did I come forth from the womb to zsee 6labor and sorrow,

  That my days should be consumed with shame?

  Jeremiah 21

  Jerusalem’s Doom Is Sealed

  1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD when aKing Zedekiah sent to him bPashhur the son of Melchiah, and cZephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,

  2d“Please inquire of the LORD for us, for 1Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that the king may go away from us.”

  3Then Jeremiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to Zedekiah,

  4‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel: “Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the 2Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls; and eI will assemble them in the midst of this city.

  5“I fMyself will fight against you with an goutstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger and fury and great wrath.

  6“I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence.

  7“And afterward,” says the LORD, h“I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. iHe shall not spare them, or have pity or mercy.” ’

  8“Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, jI set before you the way of life and the way of death.

  9“He who kremains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and 3defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall llive, and his life shall be as a prize to him.

  10“For I have mset My face against this city for adversity and not for good,” says the LORD. n“It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall oburn it with fire.” ’

  Message to the House of David

  11“And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD,

  12‘O house of David! Thus says the LORD:

  p“Execute4 judgment qin the morning;

  And deliver him who is plundered

  Out of the hand of the oppressor,

  Lest My fury go forth like fire

  And burn so that no one can quench it,

  Because of the evil of your doings.

  13“Behold, rI am against you, O 5inhabitant of the valley,

  And rock of the plain,” says the LORD,

  “Who say, s‘Who shall come down against us?

  Or who shall enter our dwellings?’

  14But I will punish you according to the tfruit of your 6doings,” says the LORD;

  “I will kindle a fire in its forest,

  And uit shall devour all things around it.” ’ ”

  Jeremiah 22

  Prophecies Against the Kings of Judah

  1Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak this word,

  2“and say, a‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates!

  3‘Thus says the LORD: b“Execute1 judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the cfatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

  4“For if you indeed do this thing, dthen shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David.

  5“But if you will not 2hear these words, eI swear by Myself,” says the LORD, “that this house shall become a desolation.” ’ ”

  6For thus says the LORD to the house of the king of Judah:

  “You are fGilead to Me,

  The head of Lebanon;

  Yet I surely will make you a wilderness,

  Cities which are not inhabited.

  7I will prepare destroyers against you,

  Everyone with his weapons;

  They shall cut down gyour choice cedars

  h And cast them into the fire.

  8“And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, i‘Why has the LORD done so to this great city?’

  9“Then they will answer, j‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.’ ”

  10Weep not for kthe dead, nor bemoan him;

  Weep bitterly for him lwho goes away,

  For he shall return no more,

  Nor see his native country.

  Message to the Sons of Josiah

  11For thus says the LORD concerning mShallum3 the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, nwho went from this place: “He shall not return here anymore,

  12“but he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.

  13“Woeo to him who builds his house by unrighteousness

  And his 4chambers by injustice,

  p Who us
es his neighbor’s service without wages

  And gives him nothing for his work,

  14Who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house with spacious 5chambers,

  And cut out windows for it,

  Paneling it with cedar

  And painting it with vermilion.’

  15“Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar?

  Did not your father eat and drink,

  And do justice and righteousness?

  Then qit was well with him.

  16He 6judged the cause of the poor and needy;

  Then it was well.

  Was not this knowing Me?” says the LORD.

  17“Yetr your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness,

  For shedding innocent blood,

  And practicing oppression and violence.”

  18Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

  s“They shall not lament for him,

  Saying, t‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, my sister!’

  They shall not lament for him,

  Saying, ‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, his glory!’

  19u He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey,

  Dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

  20“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,

  And lift up your voice in Bashan;

  Cry from Abarim,

  For all your lovers are destroyed.

  21I spoke to you in your prosperity,

  But you said, ‘I will not hear.’

  v This has been your manner from your youth,

  That you did not obey My voice.

  22The wind shall eat up all wyour 7rulers,

  And your lovers shall go into captivity;

  Surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated

  For all your wickedness.

  23O inhabitant of Lebanon,

  Making your nest in the cedars,

  How gracious will you be when pangs come upon you,

  Like xthe pain of a woman in 8labor?

  Message to Coniah

  24“As I live,” says the LORD, y“though 9Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, zwere the 10signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;

  25a“and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the 11Chaldeans.