Study Desk

You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD: "Your brothers who hate and exclude you because of My name have said, 'Let the LORD be glorified that we may see your joy!' But they will be put to shame."

When you see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass; then the hand of the LORD will be revealed to His servants, but His wrath will be shown to His enemies.

But the LORD told me: "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' For to everyone I send you, you must go, and all that I command you, you must speak.

They will fight against you but never overcome you, since I am with you to rescue you," declares the LORD.

I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land, and made My inheritance detestable.

Keep your feet from being unshod and your throat from thirst. But you say, 'It is hopeless! I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.'

But where are the gods you made for yourself? Let them rise up and save you if they can in your time of trouble; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.

Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

you say, 'I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.' But I will certainly judge you, because you say, 'I have not sinned.'

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers-and you would return to Me?" declares the LORD.

Will He be angry forever? Will He be indignant to the end?' This you have spoken, but you keep doing all the evil you can."

I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it.

Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense," declares the LORD.

But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel," declares the LORD.

Surely deception comes from the hills, commotion from the mountains, but surely the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God.

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A searing wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward the daughter of My people, but not to winnow or to sift;

"For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they do not know how to do good."

For this is what the LORD says: "The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.