Study Desk

Do you hear that noise in the city and those shouts coming from the temple? It is the Lord shouting as he punishes his enemies.

When you see this happen, you will celebrate; your strength will return faster than grass can sprout. Then everyone will know that the Lord is present with his servants, but he is angry with his enemies.

The Lord will come down like a whirlwind with his flaming chariots. He will be terribly furious and punish his enemies with fire.

The Lord reached out his hand, then he touched my mouth and said, "I am giving you the words to say,

The Lord said, "When all this happens, the king and his officials, the prophets and the priests will be shocked and terrified."

The Lord told me to tell you that your king and his mother must surrender their thrones and remove their crowns.

then Judah and Jerusalem will always be ruled by kings from David's family. The king and his officials will ride through these gates on horses or in chariots, and the people of Judah and Jerusalem will be with them. There will always be people living in Jerusalem,

I went there and saw the potter making clay pots on his pottery wheel.

And whenever the clay would not take the shape he wanted, he would change his mind and form it into some other shape.

I told them that the Lord God of Israel had told me to say to King Zedekiah: The Babylonians have surrounded Jerusalem and want to kill you and your people. You are asking me to save you, but you have made me furious. So I will stretch out my mighty arm and fight against you myself. Your army is using spears and swords to fight the Babylonians, but I will make your own weapons turn and attack you. I will send a horrible disease to kill many of the people and animals in Jerusalem, and there will be nothing left to eat. Finally, I will let King Nebuchadnezzar and his army fight their way to the center of Jerusalem and capture everyone who is left alive, including you and your officials. But Nebuchadnezzar won't be kind or show any mercy—he will have you killed! I, the Lord , have spoken.

The Lord sent me to the palace of the king of Judah to speak to the king, his officials, and everyone else who was there. The Lord told me to say: I am the Lord , so pay attention! You have been allowing people to cheat, rob, and take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners who live here. Innocent people have become victims of violence, and some of them have even been killed. But now I command you to do what is right and see that justice is done. Rescue everyone who has suffered from injustice.

The Lord said: King Josiah is dead, so don't cry for him. Instead, cry for his son King Jehoahaz, dragged off to another country, never to return.

Jehoahaz became king of Judah after his father King Josiah died. But Jehoahaz was taken as a prisoner to a foreign country. Now I, the Lord , promise that he will die there without ever seeing his own land again.

I would hand you over to the enemy you fear, to King Nebuchadnezzar and his army, who want to kill you.

When I think of the prophets, I am shocked, and I tremble like someone drunk, because of the Lord and his sacred words.

The Lord spoke to me in a vision after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had come to Judah and taken King Jehoiachin, his officials, and all the skilled workers back to Babylonia. In this vision I saw two baskets of figs in front of the Lord 's temple.

The rotten figs stand for King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and all the others who were not taken away to Babylonia, whether they stayed here in Judah or went to live in Egypt.

When that time is up, I will punish the king of Babylonia and his people for everything they have done wrong, and I will turn that country into a wasteland forever.

I started with Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and the king and his officials were removed from power in disgrace. Everyone still makes insulting jokes about them and uses their names as curse words.

The second place I went was Egypt, where everyone had to drink from the cup, including the king and his officials, the other government workers, the rest of the Egyptians,