Study Desk

You will eat but never have enough. Your hunger pangs and emptiness will remain. And though you try to save your money, it will come to nothing in the end. You will save a little, but I will give it to those who conquer you.

You will plant crops but not harvest them. You will press your olives but not get enough oil to anoint yourselves. You will trample the grapes but get no juice to make your wine.

Even the best of them is like a brier; the most honest is as dangerous as a hedge of thorns. But your judgment day is coming swiftly now. Your time of punishment is here, a time of confusion.

I will be patient as the Lord punishes me, for I have sinned against him. But after that, he will take up my case and give me justice for all I have suffered from my enemies. The Lord will bring me into the light, and I will see his righteousness.

But the land will become empty and desolate because of the wickedness of those who live there.

The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet.

But he will sweep away his enemies in an overwhelming flood. He will pursue his foes into the darkness of night.

This is what the Lord says: "Though the Assyrians have many allies, they will be destroyed and disappear. O my people, I have punished you before, but I will not punish you again.

Even though the destroyer has destroyed Judah, the Lord will restore its honor. Israel's vine has been stripped of branches, but he will restore its splendor.

Nineveh is like a leaking water reservoir! The people are slipping away. "Stop, stop!" someone shouts, but no one even looks back.

But the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down. The enemy will consume you like locusts, devouring everything they see. There will be no escape, even if you multiply like swarming locusts.

Your merchants have multiplied until they outnumber the stars. But like a swarm of locusts, they strip the land and fly away.

Your guards and officials are also like swarming locusts that crowd together in the hedges on a cold day. But like locusts that fly away when the sun comes up, all of them will fly away and disappear.

How long, O Lord , must I call for help? But you do not listen! "Violence is everywhere!" I cry, but you do not come to save.

They sweep past like the wind and are gone. But they are deeply guilty, for their own strength is their god."

But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they?

"Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.

"But soon their captives will taunt them. They will mock them, saying, ‘What sorrow awaits you thieves! Now you will get what you deserve! You've become rich by extortion, but how much longer can this go on?'

But by the murders you committed, you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives.

Has not the Lord of Heaven's Armies promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes? They work so hard, but all in vain!