Study Desk

An oracle concerning the Valley of Vision: What troubles you now, that you have all gone up on the roofs,

O town full of commotion, O city of tumult and revelry? Your slain were not killed by the sword, nor did they die in battle.

All your leaders have fled together; they have been captured without using the bow. All you who were caught were taken prisoner together, having fled while the enemy was still far away.

Therefore I said, "Turn away from me; let me weep bitterly. Do not try to console me over the destruction of my people."

The Lord, the LORD Almighty, has a day of tumult and trampling and terror in the Valley of Vision, a day of battering down walls and of crying out to the mountains.

Elam takes up the quiver, with her charioteers and horses; Kir uncovers the shield.

Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the city gates;

the defenses of Judah are stripped away. And you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest;

you saw that the City of David had many breaches in its defenses; you stored up water in the Lower Pool.

You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.

You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

The Lord, the LORD Almighty, called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.

But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! "Let us eat and drink," you say, "for tomorrow we die!"

The LORD Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: "Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for," says the Lord, the LORD Almighty.