Study Desk

Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.

For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds, and you said, "I will not serve!" On every high hill and under every green tree you sprawled and played the whore.

Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, "It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go."

who say to a tree, "You are my father," and to a stone, "You gave me birth." For they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. But in the time of their trouble they say, "Come and save us!"

But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

you say, "I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me." Now I am bringing you to judgment for saying, "I have not sinned."

From there also you will come away with your hands on your head; for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper through them.

Look up to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? By the waysides you have sat waiting for lovers, like a nomad in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your whoring and wickedness.

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.

Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says the Lord .

Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel, says the Lord . I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord ; I will not be angry forever.

Return, O faithless children, says the Lord , for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.

Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness. "Here we come to you; for you are the Lord our God.

"But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God."

For thus says the Lord to the people of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.

Raise a standard toward Zion, flee for safety, do not delay, for I am bringing evil from the north, and a great destruction.