HOPELESS, desperate, given up — a rare word, and in Jeremiah 18:12 it is the people's ENTIRE answer to God, one flat syllable of a reply. The shelf spreads out over how to say it: KJV 'There is no hope'; ASV 'It is in vain'; NIV "It's no use"; NWT 'It is hopeless!' ⚠ Note precisely what is being called hopeless. God has just said, in the same breath, that the outcome is NOT fixed — 'if that nation turns back from its evil, then I relent' (18:8) — and has named the way out: 'turn back, each of you, from his evil way' (18:11). So no'ash is not a report on their circumstances. It is a verdict on the offer, and the chapter presents it as false. The same root turns up as plain resignation elsewhere (1 Samuel 27:1, Saul giving up the chase), which is what makes its use here so bleak: the word for abandoning a search is used for abandoning repentance. → first discussed at Jer 18:12