Study Desk

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says Jehovah.

For as the heavens are high from the earth, so My ways are high from your ways, and My thoughts from your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow comes down from the heavens and do not return there, except it waters the earth and make it bring forth and bud, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break out into song before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap the hand.

Instead of the thornbush, the fir tree shall come up; instead of the brier, the myrtle shall come up; and it shall be for a name to Jehovah, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

So says Jehovah: Keep justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.

For so says Jehovah to the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths and choose things I am pleased with, and take hold of My covenant:

even them I will bring to My holy mount and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples,

yea, dogs greedy of soul; they do not know satisfaction. And they are shepherds; they do not know to discern; they all look to their own way, each one for his own gain, from his own end, saying:

And you have set up your memorial behind the door and post. For you uncovered yourself from Me and went up; you enlarged your couch; and you cut covenant with them; you loved their couch; at a hand you looked.

For so says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, and His name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, even with the contrite and humble of spirit; to make live the spirit ofthe humble and to make live the heart of thecontrite ones.

For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry, for the spirit would faint before Me, even the breaths I have made.

For I was angry and struck him for the iniquity of his gain; I hid Myself and was angry; yet he went, turning in his heart's way.

Look! You fast for strife, and for debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. Do not fast as today, to sound your voice in the high place.

Is this like the fast I will choose, a day for a man to afflict his soul? To bow his head down like a bulrush, and he spreads sackcloth and ashes? Will you call to this as a fast and a day of delight to Jehovah?

then you shall delight yourself in Jehovah. And I will cause you to ride on the heights of the earth, and make you eat with the inheritance of your father Jacob. For the mouth of Jehovah has spoken.

For your hands are defiled by blood; yea, your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood; your tongue murmurs perverseness.

No one calls for righteousness; and no one pleads with truth. Trusting emptiness, and speaking vanity, they conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity.

They do not know the way of peace; and no justice is in their tracks. They have made crooked paths for themselves; everyone going in them does not know peace.

For this reason justice is far from us; and righteousness does not overtake us. We wait for light, but, behold, dimness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.