Study Desk

By my life, says the Lord, truly, because my sheep have been taken away, and my sheep became food for all the beasts of the field, because there was no keeper, and my keepers did not go in search of the sheep, but the keepers took food for themselves and gave my sheep no food;

Because you have been pushing with side and leg, pushing the diseased with your horns till they were sent away in every direction;

Because yours has been a hate without end, and you have given up the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their trouble, in the time of the punishment of the end:

For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have been sinning through blood, blood will come after you.

Because you have said, The two nations and the two countries are to be mine, and we will take them for our heritage; though the Lord was there:

This is what the Lord has said: Because you were glad over my land when it was a waste, so will I do to you:

This is what the Lord has said: Because your hater has said against you, Aha! and, The old waste places are our heritage, we have taken them:

For this cause be a prophet, and say, This is what the Lord has said: Because, even because they have been glad over you and put you to shame on every side, because you have become a heritage for the rest of the nations, and you are taken up on the lips of talkers and in the evil talk of the people:

For this cause be a prophet about the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, This is what the Lord has said: Truly, in my bitter feeling and in my wrath I have said these things, because you have undergone the shame of the nations:

This is what the Lord has said: Because they say to you, You, O land, are the destruction of men, causing loss of children to your nation;

So I let loose my wrath on them because of those whom they had violently put to death in the land, and because they had made it unclean with their images:

For this cause say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: I am doing this, not because of you, O children of Israel, but because of my holy name, which you have made unclean among the nations wherever you went.

And at the memory of your evil ways and your wrongdoings, you will have bitter hate for yourselves because of your evil-doings and your disgusting ways, O children of Israel.

Not because of you am I doing it, says the Lord; let it be clear to you, and be shamed and made low because of your ways, O children of Israel.

And it will be clear to the nations that the children of Israel were taken away prisoners for their evil-doing; because they did wrong against me, and my face was covered from them: so I gave them up into the hands of their attackers, and they all came to their end by the sword.

And they will be certain that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them away as prisoners among the nations, and have taken them together back to their land; and I have not let one of them be there any longer.

The side-rooms became wider as they went higher up the house, by the amount of the space let into the wall up round about the house, because of the inlets in the house; and one went up from the lowest floor by steps to the middle, and from the middle to the upper floor.

You, son of man, give the children of Israel an account of this house, so that they may be shamed because of their evil-doing: and let them see the vision of it and its image.

And the Lord said to me, This doorway is to be shut, it is not to be open, and no man is to go in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has gone in by it; and it is to be shut.

Because they did this work for them before their images, and became a cause of sin to the children of Israel; for this cause my hand has been lifted up against them, says the Lord, and their punishment will be on them.