Study Desk

This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right! Then I will let you live in this place.

Will you steal and murder and be guilty of adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you burn incense to the god Baal and follow other gods you have not known?

"‘So this is what the Lord God says: I will pour out my anger on this place, on people and animals, on the trees in the field and the crops in the ground. My anger will be like a hot fire that no one can put out.

"‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Offer burnt offerings along with your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves!

I also gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Do all that I command so that good things will happen to you.

So say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth; it has disappeared from their lips.

"Why are we just sitting here? Let's get together! We have sinned against the Lord , so he has given us poisoned water to drink. Come, let's run to the strong, walled cities. The Lord our God has decided that we must die, so let's die there.

God, you are my comfort when I am very sad and when I am afraid.

Listen to the sound of my people. They cry from a faraway land: "Isn't the Lord still in Jerusalem? Isn't Jerusalem's king still there?" But God says, "Why did the people make me angry by worshiping idols, useless foreign idols?"

I wish I had a place in the desert— a house where travelers spend the night— so I could leave my people. I could go away from them, because they are all unfaithful to God; they are all turning against him.

So this is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: "I will soon make the people of Judah eat bitter food and drink poisoned water.

But the Lord is the only true God. He is the only living God, the King forever. The earth shakes when he is angry, and the nations cannot stand up to his anger.

God made the earth by his power. He used his wisdom to build the world and his understanding to stretch out the skies.

But God, who is Jacob's Portion, is not like the idols. He made everything, and he chose Israel to be his special people. The Lord All-Powerful is his name.

Tell them this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘Cursed is the person who does not obey the words of this agreement

that I made with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt. Egypt was like a furnace for melting iron!' I told them, ‘Obey me and do everything I command you. Then you will be my people, and I will be your God.

Look, people of Judah, you have as many idols as there are towns in Judah. You have built as many altars to burn incense to that shameful god Baal as there are streets in Jerusalem.'

How much longer will the land stay dried up and the grass in every field be dead? The animals and birds in the land have died, because the people are evil. Yes, they are even saying, "God does not see what happens to us."

"Say to them: ‘This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: All leather bags for holding wine should be filled with wine.' People will say to you: ‘Of course, we know all wine bags should be filled with wine.'

Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness and before you slip and fall on the dark hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it into thick darkness; he will change it into deep gloom.