Study Desk

Because Edom saith, `We have been made poor, And we turn back and we build the wastes,' Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: They do build, and I do destroy, And [men] have called to them, `O region of wickedness,' `O people whom Jehovah defied to the age.'

If ye hearken not, and if ye lay [it] not to heart, To give honour to My name, said Jehovah of Hosts, I have sent against you the curse, And I have cursed your blessings, Yea, I have also cursed it, Because ye are not laying [it] to heart.

My covenant hath been with him of life and of peace, And I make them to him a fear, and he doth fear Me, And because of My name he hath been affrighted.

And I also, I have made you despised and low before all the people, Because ye are not keeping My ways, And are accepting persons in the law.

And this a second time ye do, Covering with tears the altar of Jehovah, With weeping and groaning, Because there is no more turning unto the present, Or receiving of a pleasing thing from your hand.

And ye have said, `Wherefore?' Because Jehovah hath testified between thee And the wife of thy youth, That thou hast dealt treacherously against her, And she thy companion, and thy covenant-wife.

Ye have said, `A vain thing to serve God! And what gain when we kept His charge? And when we have gone in black, Because of Jehovah of Hosts?

`A voice in Ramah was heard -- lamentation and weeping and much mourning -- Rachel weeping [for] her children, and she would not be comforted because they are not.'

`Happy the poor in spirit -- because theirs is the reign of the heavens.

`Happy the mourning -- because they shall be comforted.

`Happy the meek -- because they shall inherit the land.

`Happy those hungering and thirsting for righteousness -- because they shall be filled.

`Happy the kind -- because they shall find kindness.

`Happy the clean in heart -- because they shall see God.

`Happy the peacemakers -- because they shall be called Sons of God.

`Happy those persecuted for righteousness' sake -- because theirs is the reign of the heavens.

rejoice ye and be glad, because your reward [is] great in the heavens, for thus did they persecute the prophets who were before you.

but I -- I say to you, not to swear at all; neither by the heaven, because it is the throne of God,

nor by the earth, because it is His footstool, nor by Jerusalem, because it is a city of a great king,

nor by thy head mayest thou swear, because thou art not able one hair to make white or black;