Study Desk

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD , until he comes and showers righteousness on you.

I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man- the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.

He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there-

But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.

Jacob fled to the country of Aram ; Israel served to get a wife, and to pay for her he tended sheep.

The LORD used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt, by a prophet he cared for him.

But Ephraim has bitterly provoked him to anger; his Lord will leave upon him the guilt of his bloodshed and will repay him for his contempt.

Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, "They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calf-idols."

I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.

Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion."

"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me."

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.

Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the husband of her youth.

Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.

To you, O LORD , I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.

Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.