The passage

1This is what the Lord says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests 2and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, 15“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.’ ”

Also referenced today

The shape of the message

1. Jeremiah returns to the potter as a customer and speaks in front of hostile elders
2. Ben-Hinnom, child sacrifice, and the setting that becomes a pulpit of judgment
3. A pronouncement with no offer of mercy, and the finality of the smashed jar
4. Siege horrors and the shock of what judgment can bring
5. God defending his people and the call to release grudges and revenge
6. Pliable clay versus hardened clay, and the point where only judgment remains

Questions to hold while you listen

• What does the location of Ben-Hinnom (child sacrifice, broken pottery, Gehenna imagery) add to the force of Jeremiah’s warning?
• Where do you see the difference between pliable clay and hardened clay in the way people respond to God’s Word and correction?
• How should someone respond when they are misrepresented or attacked, and what grudges might need to be released?
• How do the chapter’s warnings about judgment challenge the way you think about God’s patience having an end?
• What does it look like, in practical terms, to grieve over what grieves God—and to do something about it?

Notes

This week

Release one specific grudge by committing it to the Lord in prayer and refusing to take vengeance into your own hands. Choose to stay soft and responsive to God instead of stiffening your neck and resisting what you know is true.