Study Desk

you who practice ritual sex under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs.

"As for me, this is my promise to them," says the Lord . "My spirit, who is upon you, and my words, which I have placed in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children and descendants from this time forward," says the Lord .

The children of your oppressors will come bowing to you; all who treated you with disrespect will bow down at your feet. They will call you, ‘The City of the Lord , Zion of the Holy One of Israel.'

He said, "Certainly they will be my people, children who are not disloyal." He became their deliverer.

They will not work in vain, or give birth to children that will experience disaster. For the Lord will bless their children and their descendants.

"So, once more I will state my case against you," says the Lord . "I will also state it against your children and grandchildren.

The Lord answered, "This will happen because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good."

I am as full of anger as you are, Lord , I am tired of trying to hold it in." The Lord answered, "Vent it, then, on the children who play in the street and on the young men who are gathered together. Husbands and wives are to be included, as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly make these people stumble to their doom. Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. Friends and neighbors will die.'

Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin.

Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just to trouble me.

‘Death has climbed in through our windows. It has entered into our fortified houses. It has taken away our children who play in the streets. It has taken away our young men who gather in the city squares.'

But our tents have been destroyed. The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. Our children are gone and are not coming back. There is no survivor to put our tents back up, no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,' says the Lord ."

"Tell these people this, Jeremiah: ‘My eyes overflow with tears day and night without ceasing. For my people, my dear children, have suffered a crushing blow. They have suffered a serious wound.

The Lord continued, "In every town in the land I will purge them like straw blown away by the wind. I will destroy my people. I will kill off their children. I will do so because they did not change their behavior.

The mother who had seven children will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. She will suffer shame and humiliation. I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies," says the Lord .

"Do not get married and do not have children here in this land.

For I, the Lord , tell you what will happen to the children who are born here in this land and to the men and women who are their mothers and fathers.

Their children are always thinking about their altars and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, set up beside the green trees on the high hills