Study Desk

The children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire and the women knead dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

But they did not listen nor incline their ear to hear, but they walked in their own counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD; they have set their abomination in the house which is called by my name and they have polluted it.

And they have built altars by the Taphat (stream) which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither did I think of it.

AT that time, says the LORD, they shall bring out of their graves the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of their princes and the bones of their priests, and the bones of their prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem;

And they shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought and which they have worshipped; they shall not be gathered nor be buried; but they shall be like rubbish upon the face of the ground.

And they shall choose death rather than life, all the remnant of them that remain of this evil family, in all countries where I have driven them, says the LORD of hosts.

Moreover you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD: They shall fall and not arise; and even if they would try to repent, they will not do so.

I have given ear and heard, but they did not speak aright; no one repented of his evil, saying, What have I done? All of them walk according to their own will, as a horse that rushes into the battle.

The wise men are ashamed, they are defeated and caught because they have rejected the word of the LORD, and there is no wisdom in them.

And they try to heal the wound of the daughter of my people mockingly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

And they shall say, Why do we dwell here? Let us gather together and let us enter into the fortified cities and let us be silent there; for the LORD our God has silenced us and has given us bitter water to drink because we have sinned against the LORD.

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the cry of his mighty men; for they are come and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city, and those who dwell in it.

For, behold, I will send ferocious serpents among you, which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the LORD.

Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people who dwell in a far land; for they say, Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her king in her? For they have provoked me to anger with their graven images and with strange idols.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of liars.

And they bend their tongues like their bow; in falsehood and not in truth they are valiant upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the LORD.

And every man will lie against his neighbor and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are weary and worn out.

Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains and a lamentation for the camps of the shepherds in the wilderness, because they are desolate so that none can pass through them; neither can any one hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the air and the beast have fled and they are gone.

And the LORD says, Because they have forsaken my law which I gave to them and to their fathers, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked according to my warnings;