Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today, God sends Jeremiah on a little field trip.

He has him stop in where a potter is making jars.

As the potter is shaping one of them, things get a little

wonky with it, and he reshapes it into something new. Same lump of clay, different outcome.

Then God tells Jeremiah, here's the message I want you to take away from this. I'm the potter.

The people are clay. I can do whatever I want with them. Let Jerusalem know that because of their evil, my plan for them involves disaster.

Then call them to repent.

But just a reminder, before you do all this, they're not going to repent.

They're going to keep doing whatever they want, making their own plans, and following their own hearts.

They've forgotten me.

I can almost hear the heartache in God's voice when he says the last part. My people have forgotten me. What's also

interesting about this metaphor is how obviously engaged the potter is with the clay. This isn't a

computerized assembly line. This is hands-on creative work. It's fitting because,

according to Genesis 2.7, God formed man out of the dust of the earth, then breathed life into

him. God has always been uniquely involved with humanity in ways that are different from everything

else he made. We're made with his hands, not his commands. We're made in

his likeness, unlike his other creations. We are indeed the clay to his potter. And in fact,

this is a common biblical metaphor. We saw it three times in the book of Isaiah alone.

And the common theme is that the clay doesn't get to argue with

the potter. Isaiah 459 puts it this way. Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot

among earthen pots. Does the clay say to him who forms it, what are you making? Or your work has no

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