Study Desk

This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,

However, I did give them this command: ‘Obey me, and then I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.’

Therefore, declare to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths.

Why are we just sitting here?Gather together; let us enter the fortified citiesand perish there,for the Lord our God has destroyed us.He has given us poisoned water to drink,because we have sinned against the Lord.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

But the Lord is the true God;he is the living God and eternal King.The earth quakes at his wrath,and the nations cannot endure his rage.

Tell them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Let a curse be on the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,

which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.” I declared, “Obey me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be my people, and I will be your God,”

“Say this to them: ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Every jar should be filled with wine.’ Then they will respond to you, ‘Don’t we know that every jar should be filled with wine?’

And I replied, “Oh no, Lord God! The prophets are telling them, ‘You won’t see sword or suffer famine. I will certainly give you lasting peace in this place.’”

Can any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain?Or can the skies alone give showers?Are you not the Lord our God?We therefore put our hope in you,for you have done all these things.

Your words were found, and I ate them.Your words became a delight to meand the joy of my heart,for I bear your name,Lord God of Armies.

For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this terrible disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

Say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that everyone who hears about it will shudder

“This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its cities—every disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying my words.’”

‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am about to repel the weapons of war in your hands, those you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall, and I will bring them into the center of this city.

They will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God and bowed in worship to other gods and served them.’”

“Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend my people: You have scattered my flock, banished them, and have not attended to them. I am about to attend to you because of your evil acts”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

“Am I a God who is only near”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and not a God who is far away?