Study Desk

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; the people is fierce, and will have no mercy; their voice is as the roaring sea; they shall array themselves for war against thee as fire on horses and chariots, O daughter of Sion.

They are all disobedient, walking perversely: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupted.

Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

Their children gather wood, and their fathers kindle a fire, and their women knead dough, to make cakes to the host of heaven; and they have poured out drink-offerings to strange gods, that they might provoke me to anger.

But they hearkened not to me, and their ear gave no heed, but they walked in the imaginations of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward;

but they hearkened not to me, and their ear gave no heed; and they made their neck harder than their fathers.

And they have built the altar of Tapheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters with fire; which I did not command them to do, neither did I design it in my heart.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when they shall no more say, The altar of Tapheth, and the valley of the son of Ennom, but, The valley of the slain; and they shall bury in Tapheth, for want of room.

At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Juda, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;

and they shall spread them out to the sun, and the moon, and to all the stars, and to all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and to which they have held, and which they have worshipped; they shall not be mourned for, neither shall they be buried; but they shall be for an example on the face of the earth,

Hearken, I pray you, and hear: will they not speak thus, There is no man that repents of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? the runner has failed from his course, as a tired horse in his neighing.

The wise men are ashamed, and alarmed, and taken; because they have rejected the word of the Lord; what wisdom is there in them?

Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to new inheritors; and they shall gather their fruits, saith the Lord.

For, behold, I send forth against you deadly serpents, which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you

Behold, there is a sound of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land afar off: Is not the Lord in Sion? is there not a king there? because they have provoked me with their graven images, and with strange vanities.

Who would give me a most distant lodge in the wilderness, that I might leave my people, and depart from them? for they all commit adultery, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they have bent their tongue like a bow: falsehood and not faithfulness has prevailed upon the earth; for they have gone on from evil to evil, and have not known me, saith the Lord.

There is usury upon usury, and deceit upon deceit: they would not know me, saith the Lord.

Take up a lamentation for the mountains, and a mournful dirge for the paths of the wilderness, for they are desolate for want of men; they heard not the sound of life from the birds of the sky, nor the cattle: they were amazed, they are gone.

And I will remove the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and make it a dwelling-place of dragons; and I will utterly waste the cities of Juda, so that they shall not be inhabited.