“Go down at once ¹  to the potter’s house. I will speak to you further there.” ² 

Take note of ¹  the field where the men ²  are harvesting and follow behind with the female workers. ³  I will tell the men ⁴  to leave you alone. ⁵  When you are thirsty, you may go to ⁶  the water jars ⁷  and drink some of the water ⁸  the servants draw.” ⁹ 

ב (Bet) The precious sons of Zion were worth their weight in gold – Alas! – but now they are treated like ¹  broken clay pots, made by a potter. ² 

Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay ¹  one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? ² 

he ¹  will rule ²  them with an iron rod ³  and like clay jars he will break them to pieces, ⁴ 

I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ³ 

Then he said, “Fill four water jars and pour the water on the offering and the wood.” When they had done so, ¹  he said, “Do it again.” So they did it again. Then he said, “Do it a third time.” So they did it a third time.

When the containers were full, she said to one of her sons, ¹  “Bring me another container.” But he answered her, “There are no more.” Then the olive oil stopped flowing.

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, ¹  but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers ²  empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ³ 

The men ¹  who were chosen ²  took supplies ³  and their trumpets. Gideon ⁴  sent all the men of Israel back to their homes; ⁵  he kept only three hundred men. Now the Midianites ⁶  were camped down below ⁷  in the valley.

Your thinking is perverse! ¹  Should the potter be regarded as clay? ²  Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over Egypt’s waters – over their rivers, over their canals, ¹  over their ponds, and over all their reservoirs ²  – so that it becomes ³  blood.’ There will be blood everywhere in ⁴  the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”