Study Desk

Also My food which I gave you--the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you--you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was," says the Lord GOD.

"Then it was so, after all your wickedness--"Woe, woe to you!' says the Lord GOD--

So I will lay to rest My fury toward you, and My jealousy shall depart from you. I will be quiet, and be angry no more.

And it grew and became a spreading vine of low stature; Its branches turned toward him, But its roots were under it. So it became a vine, Brought forth branches, And put forth shoots.

"Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways," says the Lord GOD. "Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

Fire has come out from a rod of her branches And devoured her fruit, So that she has no strong branch-- a scepter for ruling."' This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.

So I also raised My hand in an oath to them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, 'flowing with milk and honey,' Exodus 3:8">[fn] the glory of all lands,

Then I said to them, 'What is this high place to which you go?' So its name is called Bamah [fn] to this day." '

For when you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols, even to this day. So shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live," says the Lord GOD, "I will not be inquired of by you.

Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you," says the Lord GOD.

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear--because you have come to remembrance, you shall be taken in hand.

As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you.

As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have poured out My fury on you."'

Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

"Then the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love, And they defiled her with their immorality; So she was defiled by them, and alienated herself from them.

"Thus I will make you cease your lewdness and your harlotry Brought from the land of Egypt, So that you will not lift your eyes to them, Nor remember Egypt anymore.'

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded.

And the people said to me, "Will you not tell us what these things signify to us, that you behave so?"

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the Pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the lowest part of the earth, in places desolate from antiquity, with those who go down to the Pit, so that you may never be inhabited; and I shall establish glory in the land of the living.