Study Desk

Everyone lies to his friend, and no one speaks the truth. The people of Judah have taught their tongues to lie. They have become tired from sinning.

Their tongues are like sharp arrows. Their mouths speak lies. Everyone speaks nicely to his neighbor, but he is secretly planning to attack him.

Now, women of Judah, listen to the word of the Lord ; open your ears to hear the words of his mouth. Teach your daughters how to cry loudly. Teach one another a funeral song.

The customs of other people are worth nothing. Their idols are just wood cut from the forest, shaped by a worker with his chisel.

But the Lord is the only true God. He is the only living God, the King forever. The earth shakes when he is angry, and the nations cannot stand up to his anger.

God made the earth by his power. He used his wisdom to build the world and his understanding to stretch out the skies.

When he thunders, the waters in the skies roar. He makes clouds rise in the sky all over the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

But God, who is Jacob's Portion, is not like the idols. He made everything, and he chose Israel to be his special people. The Lord All-Powerful is his name.

But after I pull them up, I will feel sorry for them again. I will bring each person back to his own property and to his own land.

Then the Lord spoke his word to me a second time:

Then the Lord spoke his word to me.

Can a person from Cush change the color of his skin? Can a leopard change his spots? In the same way, Jerusalem, you cannot change and do good, because you are accustomed to doing evil.

"Who will feel sorry for you, Jerusalem? Who will be sad and cry for you? Who will go out of his way to ask how you are?

Then the Lord spoke his word to me:

"Important people and common people will die in the land of Judah. No one will bury them or cry for them or cut himself or shave his head to show sorrow for them.

He was using his hands to make a pot from clay, but something went wrong with it. So he used that clay to make another pot the way he wanted it to be.

Then the Lord spoke his word to me:

But the people of Judah will answer, ‘It won't do any good to try! We will continue to do what we want. Each of us will do what his stubborn, evil heart wants!'"

The next day when Pashhur took Jeremiah out of the blocks of wood, Jeremiah said to him, "The Lord 's name for you is not Pashhur. Now his name for you is Terror on Every Side.

Sometimes I say to myself, "I will forget about the Lord . I will not speak anymore in his name." But then his message becomes like a burning fire inside me, deep within my bones. I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me, and finally, I cannot hold it in.