Study Desk

"O house of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? declares the LORD. Just like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

"Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: 'I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.'"

For I have heard the whispering of many, "Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!" All my trusted friends watch for my fall: "Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him."

because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged.

"Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is waging war against us. Perhaps the LORD will perform for us something like all His past wonders, so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us."

who says, 'I will build myself a great palace, with spacious upper rooms.' So he cuts windows in it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermilion.

He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well. Is this not what it means to know Me?" declares the LORD.

So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they will no longer say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.'

And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah."

But no longer refer to the oracle of the LORD, for each man's word becomes the oracle, so that you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of Hosts, our God.

One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

"Jeremiah," the LORD asked, "what do you see?" "Figs!" I replied. "The good figs are very good, but the bad figs are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten."

"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.

But like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten, says the LORD, so I will deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem-those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt.

So the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and all the residents of Jerusalem as follows:

'But to your own harm, you have not listened to Me,' declares the LORD, 'so you have provoked Me to anger with the works of your hands.'

behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I will bring them against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

So I took the cup from the LORD's hand and made all the nations drink from it, each one to whom the LORD had sent me,

For behold, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears My name, so how could you possibly go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of Hosts.'