The chapter to understand: Isaiah 64

1. Oh, that You would rend the heavens [and] come down, That the mountains might quake at Your presence–
2. As fire kindles the brushwood, [as] fire causes water to boil– To make Your name known to Your adversaries, [That] the nations may tremble at Your presence!
3. When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
4. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
5. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, [We continued] in them a long time; And shall we be saved?
6. For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7. There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
8. But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.
9. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.
10. Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11. Our holy and beautiful house, Where our fathers praised You, Has been burned [by] fire; And all our precious things have become a ruin.
12. Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O LORD? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

The clarity: Jeremiah 18

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, 6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. 7 “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. 9 “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; 10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. 11 “So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity^[1] against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”’ 12 “But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

13 “Therefore thus says the LORD,
‘Ask now among the nations,
Who ever heard the like of this?
The virgin of Israel
Has done a most appalling thing.

14 ‘Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the open country?
Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away?

15 ‘For My people have forgotten Me,
They burn incense to worthless gods
And they have stumbled from their ways,
From the ancient paths,
To walk in bypaths,
Not on a highway,

16 To make their land a desolation,
An object of perpetual hissing;
Everyone who passes by it will be astonished
And shake his head.

17 ‘Like an east wind I will scatter them
Before the enemy;
I will show them My back and not My face
In the day of their calamity.’”

18 Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words.”

19 Do give heed to me, O LORD,
And listen to what my opponents are saying!

20 Should good be repaid with evil?
For they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
So as to turn away Your wrath from them.

21 Therefore, give their children over to famine
And deliver them up to the power of the sword;
And let their wives become childless and widowed.
Let their men also be smitten to death,
Their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

22 May an outcry be heard from their houses,
When You suddenly bring raiders upon them;
For they have dug a pit to capture me
And hidden snares for my feet.

23 Yet You, O LORD, know
All their deadly designs against me;
Do not forgive their iniquity
Or blot out their sin from Your sight.
But may they be overthrown before You;
Deal with them in the time of Your anger!

[1] Note “calamity” is not in the Hebrew. Lets look at what the Young’s Literal Translation reads:

And now, speak, I pray thee, unto men of Judah, And against inhabitants of Jerusalem, Saying: Thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am framing against you evil, And devising against you a device, Turn back, I pray you, each from his evil way And amen your ways and your doings.

Devising a device is not is not setting calamity. A sculptor using instruments to remove the clay that is not appropriate to the sculpture.

But what is the actions of God to apply these tools. Again, if we look at the Hebrew in other locations and even here, it is their evil that is framed against them. God frames a person’s evil against them. They receive the fruit of their own evil.