I sent him ¹  against a godless ²  nation, I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ³  to take plunder and to carry away loot, to trample them down ⁴  like dirt in the streets.

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”?

I have stirred up one out of the north ¹  and he advances, one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ²  He steps on ³  rulers as if they were clay, like a potter treading the clay.

One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, ¹  one who is like a mere ²  shard among the other shards on the ground! The clay should not say to the potter, ³  “What in the world ⁴  are you doing? Your work lacks skill!” ⁵ 

Now and then ¹  there would be something wrong ²  with the pot he was molding from the clay ³  with his hands. So he would rework ⁴  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ⁵ 

And the people stayed up ¹  all that day, all that night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail. The one who gathered the least gathered ten homers, ²  and they spread them out ³  for themselves all around the camp.

“I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? ²  In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’