Study Desk

"But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

"For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise'—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not."

O Lord , do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.

I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the Lord , the justice of their God." But they all alike had broken the yoke; they had burst the bonds.

"Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the Lord 's.

"But even in those days, declares the Lord , I will not make a full end of you.

"Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.

the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

For thus says the Lord of hosts: "Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.

Thus says the Lord : "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'

I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!' But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.'

But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'

But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.

Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

"So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord , when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere.

I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?' Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.

Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the Lord .

"How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.