Study Desk

How the gold dims, the good gold is changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold. How they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand!

Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young. But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the nursling cleaves to his palate in thirst. The young children ask bread, but there is no breaking for them.

Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared on scarlet embrace dunghills.

And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were whirled on her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as azure-blue , as lapis lazuli.

Their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the open places. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up, it has become like wood.

Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by famine, those who flow away, pierced because the produce of my fields failed .

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food to them in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger and has kindled a fire in Zion; and it has devoured its foundations.

The kings of the earth and all those living in the world would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into the gates of Jerusalem.

Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, pouring out the blood of the righteous in her midst,

they reeled blind in the open places. They are defiled with blood, so that not any are able to touch their garments.

They cried out to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled. They said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.

The face of Jehovah has divided them out; He will not continue to look on them. They did not lift up the face of the priests, they did not favor the elders.