buy a potter's earthen bottle The point in ch. 18 (the potter's clay) was the power of God to alter the destinies of a people at any moment, just as the potter's work (Jeremiah 19:4) was made "again another vessel." The special lesson hereis that there may come a time in the history of a nation when its persistent obduracy shall demand that the only alteration in its destiny shall take the form of breaking, destruction.

take] The word (supplied in LXX) has fallen accidentally out of the Hebrew text.

the elders of the priests The expression occurs 2 Kings 19:2. They are called "the chiefs of the priests" in 2 Chronicles 36:14.

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