Study Desk

Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.

Thus saith the Lord: Let thy voice cease from weeping, and thy eyes tears: for there is a reward for thy work, saith the Lord: and they shall return out of the land of the enemy.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As yet shall they say this word in the land of Juda, and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring back their captivity: The Lord bless thee, the beauty of justice, the holy mountain.

And Juda and all his cities shall dwell therein together: the husbandman and they that drive the flocks.

In those days they shall say no more: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.

Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord.

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Thus saith the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I also will cast away all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Take these writings, this deed of the purchase that is sealed up, and this deed that is open: and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days.

And they came in, and possessed it: but they obeyed not thy voice, and they walked not in thy law: and they did not any of those things that thou didst command them to do, and all these evils are come upon them.

Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans, and into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they shall take it.

And the Chaldeans that fight against this city, shall come and set it on fire, and burn it, with the houses upon whose roofs they offered sacrifice to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to strange gods, to provoke me to wrath.

For this city hath been to me a provocation and indignation from the day that they built it, until this day, in which it shall be taken out of my sight.

Because of all the evil of the children of Israel, and of the children of Juda, which they have done, provoking me to wrath, they and their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction.

And they have set their idols in the house, in which my name is called upon, to defile it.

And they have built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Ennom, to consecrate their sons and their daughters to Moloch: which I commanded them not, neither entered it into my heart, that they should do this abomination, and cause Juda to sin.

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all days: and that it may be well with them, and with their children after them.