Study Desk

Then I said, "Lord God , you have tricked the people of Judah and Jerusalem. You said, ‘You will have peace,' but now the sword is pointing at our throats!"

The Lord says, "My people are foolish. They do not know me. They are stupid children; they don't understand. They are skillful at doing evil, but they don't know how to do good."

This is what the Lord says: "All the land will be ruined, but I will not completely destroy it.

Judah, you destroyed nation, what are you doing? Why do you put on your finest dress and decorate yourself with gold jewelry? Why do you put color around your eyes? You make yourself beautiful, but it is all useless. Your lovers hate you; they want to kill you.

Lord , don't you look for truth in people? You struck the people of Judah, but they didn't feel any pain. You crushed them, but they refused to learn what is right. They became more stubborn than a rock; they refused to turn back to God.

But I thought, "These are only the poor, foolish people. They have not learned the way of the Lord and what their God wants them to do.

So I will go to the leaders of Judah and talk to them. Surely they understand the way of the Lord and know what God wants them to do." But even the leaders had all joined together to break away from the Lord ; they had broken their ties with him.

The Lord said, "Tell me why I should forgive you. Your children have left me and have made promises to idols that are not gods at all. I gave your children everything they needed, but they still were like an unfaithful wife to me. They spent much time in houses of prostitutes.

"Go along and cut down Judah's vineyards, but do not completely destroy them. Cut off all her people as if they were branches, because they do not belong to the Lord .

Hear this message, you foolish people who have no sense. They have eyes, but they don't really see. They have ears, but they don't really listen.

Surely you are afraid of me," says the Lord . "You should shake with fear in my presence. I am the one who made the beaches to be a border for the sea, a border the water can never go past. The waves may pound the beach, but they can't win over it. They may roar, but they cannot go beyond it.

But the people of Judah are stubborn and have turned against me. They have turned aside and gone away from me.

But your evil has kept away both rain and harvest. Your sins have kept you from enjoying good things.

The prophets speak lies, and the priests take power into their own hands, and my people love it this way. But what will you do when the end comes?

They say, "Get ready to fight against Jerusalem! Get up! We will attack at noon! But it is already getting late; the evening shadows are growing long.

This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: "Cut down the trees around Jerusalem, and build an attack ramp to the top of its walls. This city must be punished. Inside it is nothing but slavery.

But I am full of the anger of the Lord , and I am tired of holding it in. "Pour out my anger on the children who play in the street and on the young men gathered together. A husband and his wife will both be caught in his anger, as will the very old.

They tried to heal my people's serious injuries as if they were small wounds. They said, ‘It's all right, it's all right.' But really, it is not all right.

They should be ashamed of the terrible way they act, but they are not ashamed at all. They don't even know how to blush about their sins. So they will fall, along with everyone else. They will be thrown to the ground when I punish them," says the Lord .

This is what the Lord says: "Stand where the roads cross and look. Ask where the old way is, where the good way is, and walk on it. If you do, you will find rest for yourselves. But they have said, ‘We will not walk on the good way.'