Study Desk

For he did not kill me before I was born, so that my mother's body would have been my grave.

O house of David, the Lord says, "Do what is right every morning. Take the person who has been robbed away from the one who has made it hard for him. So My anger will not go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out, because of the sinful things you have done.

Do you become a king by trying to build better houses of cedar? Did not your father eat and drink? He did what was right and fair and good, so all went well with him.

He spoke strong words in the cause of the poor and those in need, and so all went well. Is not that what it means to know Me?" says the Lord.

So the Lord says about Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, "They will not cry in sorrow for him, saying, ‘It is bad, my brother!' or, ‘It is bad, my sister!' They will not cry in sorrow for him, saying, ‘O lord!' or, ‘O, how great he was!'

So see, the days are coming," says the Lord, "when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, Who brought the sons of Israel up from the land of Egypt.'

"So their way will be a danger to them. They will be driven away into the darkness and fall down in it. For I will bring much trouble upon them in the year of their punishment," says the Lord.

In Jerusalem I have seen a very sinful thing among the men of Jerusalem who tell what is going to happen in the future. They do sex sins and tell lies, and give help to those who do sinful things, so that no one turns from his sin. All of them have become like Sodom to Me. The people of Jerusalem have become like Gomorrah."

So the Lord of All says about the men who tell what is going to happen in the future, "See, I will make them eat bitter food and drink water with poison. For from these men of Jerusalem sin has gone out into all the land."

Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?" says the Lord. "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord.

So I am against those who tell what is going to happen in the future," says the Lord, "who steal My words from each other.

I am against those who have told false dreams," says the Lord, "and have led My people the wrong way by their lies and foolish words of pride. I did not send them or tell them what to say, so they do not help these people at all," says the Lord.

So I will pick you up and throw you away from Me, together with the city which I gave to you and your fathers.

One basket had very good figs, like figs just ready to eat. And the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.

Then the Lord said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten."

"This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so will I think of the people of Judah as being good, whom I have sent away from this place into the land of the Babylonians.

"But the Lord says, ‘Like the bad figs which are so bad they cannot be eaten, so I will give up Zedekiah king of Judah and his captains. And I will give up those left of Jerusalem who stay in this land, and those who live in the land of Egypt.

"So the Lord of All says, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words,

So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it.

"So you should speak all these words against them. Tell them, ‘The Lord will sound from on high. His voice will be heard from His holy place. He will call out in a loud voice against his flock. He will call out like those who crush the grapes, against all the people of the earth.