Study Desk

"And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you shall tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,

and say, 'Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again, because of the disaster that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.'" To this point are the words of Jeremiah.

How shall I admonish you? What shall I compare to you, Daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I liken to you as I comfort you, Virgin daughter of Zion? For your collapse is as vast as the sea; Who can heal you?

"Keep away! Unclean!" they cried out of themselves. "Keep away, keep away, do not touch!" For they distanced themselves as well as wandered; People among the nations said, "They shall not continue to reside with us."

The breath of our nostrils, the LORD'S anointed, Was captured in their pits, Of whom we had said, "In his shadow We shall live among the nations."

"So I am sending you to those who are impudent and obstinate children, and you shall say to them, 'This is what the Lord GOD says:'

"But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

"When I say to the wicked, 'You will certainly die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way so that he may live, that wicked person shall die for wrongdoing, but his blood I will require from your hand.

"However if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for wrongdoing, but you have saved yourself.

"Again, when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits sin, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require from your hand.

"However, if you have warned the righteous person that the righteous is not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall certainly live because he took warning; and you have saved yourself."

"Then you are to lie down on your left side and put the wrongdoing of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their wrongdoing for the number of days that you lie on it.

"For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their wrongdoing, 390 days; so you shall bear the wrongdoing of the house of Israel.

"When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

"Then you shall direct your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.

"But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days.

"Your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.

"The water you drink shall be a sixth of a hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time.

"You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung."

"A third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and a third you shall scatter to the wind; for I will unsheathe a sword behind them.