Study Desk

"I will also cut off your carved images And your sacred pillars from among you, So that you will no longer worship and bow down To the work of your hands.

"My people, remember now What Balak king of Moab devised [with his evil plan against Israel] And what Balaam the son of Beor answered him [turning the curse into blessing for Israel], [Remember what the LORD did for you] from Shittim to Gilgal, So that you may know the righteous and saving acts [displaying the power] of the LORD."

Then the LORD answered me and said, "Write the vision And engrave it plainly on [clay] tablets So that the one who reads it will run.

"Moreover, wine is treacherous and betrays the arrogant man, So that he does not stay at home. His appetite is large like Sheol, And he is like death, never satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations And collects to himself all peoples [as if he owned them].

"Woe (judgment is coming) to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom to make them drunk So that you may look at their nakedness!

I will bring distress on men So that they will walk like the blind [unable to find a way of escape], Because they have sinned against the LORD; Their blood will be poured out like dust [and trampled underfoot], And their flesh like dung.

Woe (judgment is coming) to the inhabitants of the seacoast, The nation of the Cherethites [in Philistia]! The word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; I will destroy you So that no inhabitant will be left.

"I [the LORD] have cut off and destroyed nations [as a warning to Judah]; Their corner towers (battlements) are in ruins. I have made their streets desolate So that no one passes by; Their cities are destroyed So that there is no man, there is no inhabitant.

I asked, "What are these [horns and craftsmen] coming to do?" And he said, "These are the horns (powers) that have scattered Judah so that no man raised up his head [because of the suffering inflicted by the Gentile nations]. But these craftsmen have come to terrify them and make them panic, and throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it."

"They made their hearts [hard] like flint, so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.

"but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted."

"And they will pass through the sea of distress and anxiety [with the LORD leading His people, as at the Red Sea] And He will strike the waves in the sea, So that all the depths of the Nile will dry up; And the pride of Assyria will be brought down And the scepter [of the taskmasters] of Egypt will pass away.

"The LORD shall save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be magnified above Judah.

"Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, And against the Man, My Associate," Declares the LORD of hosts. "Strike the Shepherd so that the sheep [of the flock] may be scattered; And I will turn My hand and stretch it out against the little ones [of the flock].

"Oh, that there were even one among you [whose duty it is to minister to Me] who would shut the gates, so that you would not kindle fire on My altar uselessly [with an empty, worthless pretense]! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD of hosts, "nor will I accept an offering from your hand.

"For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong and violence," says the LORD of hosts. "Therefore keep watch on your spirit, so that you do not deal treacherously [with your wife]."

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi [the priests], and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD [grain] offerings in righteousness.

"Bring all the tithes (the tenth) into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you [so great] a blessing until there is no more room to receive it.

"For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant (proud, self-righteous, haughty), and every evildoer shall be stubble; and the day that is coming shall set them on fire," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

"He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance], so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse [of complete destruction]."