Study Desk

"Shout for joy, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth into song and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD.

Whom are you mocking? At whom do you snarl and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of deceit,

who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

"As for Me, this is My covenant with them," says the LORD. "My Spirit who is on you, and My words that I have put in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth, from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of your children's children, from now on and forevermore," says the LORD.

Surely the islands will wait for Me, with the ships of Tarshish in the lead, to bring your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has bestowed glory on you.

They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD-they and their descendants with them.

Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.

Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children's children.

"Return, O faithless children," declares the LORD, "for I am your master, and I will take you-one from a city and two from a family-and bring you to Zion.

A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.

"Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness." "Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God.

"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."

"Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.

But I am full of the LORD's wrath; I am tired of holding it back. Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old.

For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses, to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles, by the green trees, on the high hills.

Therefore, hand their children over to famine, pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed, their husbands be slain by disease, and their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal-something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it ever enter My mind.

Their children will be as in days of old, and their congregation will be established before Me. And I will punish all their oppressors.

This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing consolation, because they are no more."