Study Desk

Yet they seek me daily and wish to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God; they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in drawing near to God.

But it is your iniquities that have separated you and your God; and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Transgressing and lying against the LORD, turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and devising in our heart words of falsehood.

For the islands shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish as in former days, to bring your sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the LORD your God, and the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of the salvation of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

But you shall be named the priests of the LORD; men shall call you the ministers of our God; you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves.

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD and my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself in splendor and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its bud, and as the garden causes the seed which is sown in it to spring forth, so the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

For as a young man husbands a virgin, so shall your sons husband you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither has the eye seen, O God, any besides thee, because of what thou doest for those that wait for thee.

Therefore thus says the LORD God: Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall weep;

And you shall leave your name for a curse to my chosen ones; for the LORD God shall slay you, and call his servants by another name;

So that he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from my presence.

Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? says the LORD; perhaps it is not I who causes to bring forth and who shuts the womb? says the LORD your God.

Then I said, I beseech thee, O LORD God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am but a child.

Behold, such shall be done unto you, because you have forsaken the LORD your God, at a time when he led you in his way.

Your own evil shall chastise you, and your repentance shall reprove .you; know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, for you have forsaken the LORD your God, and you have not revered me, says the LORD God of hosts.

For of old time I have broken your yoke and cut your bands; and you said, I shall never serve another god again; and behold, now upon every high hill and under every green tree you wander, playing the harlot.

For though you wash yourself with nitre and use much sulphur, yet your sins within you are marked before me, says the LORD God.