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I. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PARABLE OF THE MARRED VESSEL AND THAT OF THE BROWN VESSEL. The one parable speaks of reformation, the other of destruction. The vessel was made of clay which had become hard, and it was impossible to remodel it. Therefore it was broken to shivers.

II. THE INSIGHT WHICH THIS PARABLE GIVES INTO THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE TO WHOM IT WAS SPOKEN. People who needed to have the messages of God brought home to them by such signs as this, who seem to have been incapable of laying to heart God's Word unless it was accompanied by some external manifestation, must have had little spiritual perception, and were therefore most likely to be in a low state as regards moral character.

III. THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE PARABLE. It declares that the nation would, in time, fill up the full measure of its iniquity. The Divine Potter never breaks what can be mended. The message which accompanied the parable, being a repetition of the curses threatened by Moses in Deuteronomy 28, is intended to make the people feel that the fault was with themselves alone if the curses therein foretold were fulfilled, and the promised blessings withheld. We come into this world and find laws in existence which we soon understand are prophecies. They tell us beforehand that their observance will be accompanied with blessings, and their non-observance with penalty. We can choose for ourselves which shall be fulfilled in our case. The people to whom Jeremiah brought this message found themselves in such a position. God had set before them "life and good, and death and evil" (Deuteronomy 30:15). So that the terrible woes foretold in this chapter were the choice of the people of Israel, and not unheard of penalties now promulgated for the first time.

(A London Minister.)

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KJV: Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;

WEB: Thus said Yahweh, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and [take] of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;