Study Desk

"Yet, behold, survivors will be left in it [escaping the judgments], both sons and daughters. Listen carefully, they are going to come out to you [in Babylon] and you will see their [wicked] conduct and [despicable] actions; then you will be at peace in regard to the disaster which I have brought against Jerusalem for everything which I have brought on it [has been deserved].

and I set My face against them. Though they have come out of the fire, yet the fire will consume them. Then you will know [without any doubt] that I am the LORD, when I set My face against them.

"I made you (Israel) multiply like plants [which grow] in the field, and you grew up and became tall and you reached the age for [wearing] fine jewelry; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

"Moreover, you increased your obscene immorality with the land of tradesmen, Chaldea (Babylonia), and yet even with this you were not satisfied."'"

"Yet you have not merely walked in their ways or behaved in accordance with their pagan practices; but, as if that were too little, you [soon] acted more corruptly in all your ways than they.

'Now Zedekiah dishonored the oath by breaking the covenant, and behold, he gave his hand and pledged his allegiance, yet did all these things; he shall not escape.'"

"Yet do you say, 'Why should the son not bear the punishment for the father's sin?' When the son has practiced justice and righteousness and has kept all My statutes and has done them, he shall certainly live.

"Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?

"Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not right!' O house of Israel, are My ways not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?

"Yet My eye [looked on them with compassion and] spared them instead of destroying them, and I did not annihilate them in the wilderness.

"Yet the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to observe My ordinances, which, if a man keeps, he will live; they profaned My Sabbaths. Then I decided to pour out My wrath on them and finish My anger against them in the wilderness.

"Yet I withdrew My hand and acted for My Name's sake, that it would not be profaned in the sight of the [pagan] nations in whose sight I had brought them out [of slavery].

"Now her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lust than she, and her acts of prostitution were more [wanton] than the immoralities of her sister.

"Yet she multiplied her depravities, remembering the days of her youth, when she was actively immoral in the land of Egypt.

"She has wearied Me with toil, Yet her great rust has not left her; Her thick rust and filth will not be burned away by fire [no matter how hot the flame].

"In your filthiness are lewdness and outrage. Therefore I would have cleansed you, Yet you were not [willing to be] cleansed, You will not be cleansed from your filthiness again Until I have satisfied My wrath against you.

"Son of man, listen carefully, I am about to take away from you the desire of your eyes [your wife] with a single stroke. Yet you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not flow.

"I will bring terrors on you and you will be no more. Though you will be sought, yet you will never be found again," says the Lord GOD.

"Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Because your heart is lifted up And you have said and thought, 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods In the heart of the seas'; Yet you are [only] a man [weak, feeble, made of earth] and not God, Though you [imagine yourself to be more than mortal and] think your mind is as [wise as] the mind of God—

"Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army work hard [at My command] against Tyre; every [soldier's] head became bald and every shoulder was worn and peeled [from carrying loads of dirt and stones for siege works]. Yet he had no wages from Tyre [in proportion to the time and labor expended during the siege], either for himself or his army, for the work that he had done against it [for Me]."