Study Desk

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

"Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.

"In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD , "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD , "when I will send a famine through the land- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD .

Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD , but they will not find it.

"In that day "the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst.

They who swear by the shame ^(F24) of Samaria, or say, 'As surely as your god lives, O Dan,' or, 'As surely as the god of Beersheba lives'- they will fall, never to rise again."