Study Desk

Where is your king, that he may be your saviour? and all your rulers, that they may take up your cause? of whom you said, Give me a king and rulers.

They will come back and have rest in his shade; their life will be made new like the grain, and they will put out flowers like the vine; his name will be like the wine of Lebanon.

Their form is like the form of horses, and they are running like war-horses.

They make a rush on the town, running on the wall; they go up into the houses and in through the windows like a thief.

I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them.

And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine.

I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it.

Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have been crushing Gilead with iron grain-crushing instruments.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Gaza, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they took all the people away prisoners, to give them up to Edom.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Tyre, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they gave up all the people prisoners to Edom, without giving a thought to the brothers' agreement between them.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because in Gilead they had women with child cut open, so that they might make wider the limits of their land.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Judah, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given up the law of the Lord, and have not kept his rules; and their false ways, in which their fathers went, have made them go out of the right way.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given the upright man for silver, and the poor for the price of two shoes;

For they have no knowledge of how to do what is right, says the Lord, who are storing up violent acts and destruction in their great houses.

The Lord God has taken an oath by his holy name, that the days are coming when they will take you away with hooks, and the rest of you with fish-hooks.

They have hate for him who makes protest against evil in the public place, and he whose words are upright is disgusting to them.

So these are the words of the Lord, the God of armies, the Lord: There will be weeping in all the open spaces; and in all the streets they will say, Sorrow! sorrow! and they will get in the farmer to the weeping, and the makers of sad songs to give cries of grief.

So now they will go away prisoners with the first of those who are made prisoners, and the loud cry of those who were stretched out will come to an end.

And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small.