Study Desk

But the LORD is with me as a dread champion [one to be greatly feared]; Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not overcome [me]. They will be completely shamed, for they have not acted wisely and have failed [in their schemes]; Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

But, O LORD of hosts, You who examine the righteous, Who see the heart and the mind, Let me see Your vengeance on them; For to You I have committed my cause.

"He who remains in this city [of Jerusalem] will die by the sword and by famine and by virulent disease. But he who goes outside and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and his life will be like a prize of war to him.

"But I will punish you in accordance with the [appropriate] consequences of your decisions and your actions," says the LORD. "I will kindle a fire in your forest, And it will devour all that is around you."'"

"But if you will not hear and obey these words, I swear [an oath] by Myself," says the LORD, "that this house will become a desolation."'"

Do not weep for the dead or mourn for him; But weep bitterly for the one who goes away [into exile], For he will never return And see his native country [again].

"But your eyes and your heart Are only intent on your own dishonest gain, On shedding innocent blood, On oppression and extortion and violence."

"I spoke to you in your [times of] prosperity, But you said, 'I will not listen!' This has been your attitude and practice from your youth; You have not obeyed My voice.

"But as for the land to which they long to return, they will not return to it.

but [they will say], 'As the LORD lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries to which I had driven them.' Then they will live in their own land."

"But who [among them] has stood in the council of the LORD, That he would perceive and hear His word? Who has marked His word [noticing and observing and paying attention to it] and has [actually] heard it?

"But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have caused My people to hear My words, Then they would have turned My people from their evil way And from the evil of their decisions and deeds.

"The prophet who has a dream may tell his dream; but he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat [for nourishment]?" says the LORD.

"For you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man's own word will become the oracle, [for as they mockingly call all prophecies oracles, whether good or bad, so will it prove to be to them; God will take them at their own word]; and you have perverted the words [not of a lifeless idol, but] of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.

One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are the first to ripen; but the other basket had very bad figs, so rotten that they could not be eaten.

"For these twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day—the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you over and over again, but you have not listened.

"But know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on its inhabitants, for in truth the LORD has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing."

"Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Zion will be plowed like a field, And Jerusalem will become [heaps of] ruins, And the mountain of the house [of the LORD—Mount Moriah, on which stands the temple, shall become covered not with buildings, but] like a densely wooded height."'

"Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put Micah to death? Did he not [reverently] fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD? And did not the LORD relent and reverse His decision concerning the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But [here] we are [thinking of] committing a great evil against ourselves."

And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put Uriah to death; but when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt.