Study Desk

"For this is what the LORD of armies says: 'Just as I determined to do harm to you when your fathers provoked Me to anger,' says the LORD of armies, 'and I have not relented,

Then the word of the LORD of armies came to me, saying,

"When I scatter them among the peoples, They will remember Me in distant countries, And they with their children will live and come back.

Then I did away with the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was tired of me.

So it was broken on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD.

And I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.

Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

And the LORD said to me, "Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.

"And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

but he will say, 'I am not a prophet; I am a cultivator of the ground, because a man sold me as a slave in my youth.'

"My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me and was in awe of My name.

"True instruction was in his mouth and injustice was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and justice, and he turned many back from wrongdoing.

"Behold, I am sending My messenger, and he will clear a way before Me. And the Lord, whom you are seeking, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of armies.

"Then I will come near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, those who oppress the wage earner in his wages or the widow or the orphan, and those who turn away the stranger from justice and do not fear Me," says the LORD of armies.

"From the days of your fathers you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of armies. "But you say, 'How shall we return?'

"Would anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings.

"You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the entire nation of you!

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and put Me to the test now in this," says the LORD of armies, "if I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.

"Your words have been arrogant against Me," says the LORD. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against You?'

And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him."