clay

⁸And now, O Lord, you are our Father, yet truly, we are clay. And you are our Maker, and we are all the works of your hands.

²“Rise up and descend into the house of the potter, and there you will hear my words.” ³And I descended into the house of the potter, and behold, he was making a work on the wheel. ⁴And the vessel, which he was making with his hands out of clay, broke. And turning away, he made another vessel, for it had been pleasing in his eyes to make it. ⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁶“Am I not able to do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord? Behold, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

⁷And then the Lord God formed man from the clay of the earth, and he breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

⁷But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, so that what is sublime may be of the power of God, and not of us.

⁸Your hands have made me and formed me all around, and, in this way, do you suddenly throw me away? ⁹Remember, I ask you, that you have fashioned me like clay, and you will reduce me to dust. ¹⁰Have you not extracted me like milk and curdled me like cheese? ¹¹You have clothed me with skin and flesh. You have put me together with bones and nerves. ¹²You have assigned to me life and mercy, and your visitation has preserved my spirit.

¹⁶This intention of yours is perverse. It is as if the clay were to plan against the potter, or as if the work were to say to its maker: “You did not make me.” Or it is as if what has been formed were to say to the one who formed it, “You do not understand.”

⁹Woe to him who contradicts his Maker, a mere shard from an earthen vessel! Should the clay say to the potter, “What are you making?” or, “Your work is not made by your hands?”

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²“Rise up and descend into the house of the potter, and there you will hear my words.” ³And I descended into the house of the potter, and behold, he was making a work on the wheel. ⁴And the vessel, which he was making with his hands out of clay, broke. And turning away, he made another vessel, for it had been pleasing in his eyes to make it. ⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁶“Am I not able to do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord? Behold, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

²⁰O man, who are you to question God? How can the thing that has been formed say to the One who formed him: “Why have you made me this way?” ²¹And does not the potter have the authority over the clay to make, from the same material, indeed, one vessel unto honor, yet truly another unto disgrace? ²²What if God, wanting to reveal his wrath and to make his power known, endured, with much patience, vessels deserving wrath, fit to be destroyed,

²⁰But, in a large house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also those of wood and of clay; and certainly some are held in honor, but others in dishonor.

²¹And does not the potter have the authority over the clay to make, from the same material, indeed, one vessel unto honor, yet truly another unto disgrace?

⁶“Am I not able to do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord? Behold, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

³Know that the Lord himself is God. He made us, and we ourselves did not. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

¹³For you have possessed my temperament. You have supported me from the womb of my mother. ¹⁴I will confess to you, for you have been magnified terribly. Your works are miraculous, as my soul knows exceedingly well. ¹⁵My bone, which you have made in secret, has not been hidden from you, and my substance is in accord with the lower parts of the earth. ¹⁶Your eyes saw my imperfection, and all this shall be written in your book. Days will be formed, and no one shall be in them.

⁵“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you went forth from the womb, I sanctified you. And I made you a prophet to the nations.”