Study Desk

They will plant their crops in peace. Their vines will bear grapes, the earth will produce crops, and there will be plenty of rain. I will give all these blessings to the people of my nation who survive.

They will no longer eat meat with blood in it, or other forbidden food. All the survivors will become part of my people and be like a clan in the tribe of Judah. Ekron will become part of my people, as the Jebusites did.

The Lord Almighty will protect his people, and they will destroy their enemies. They will shout in battle like drunk men and will shed the blood of their enemies; it will flow like the blood of a sacrifice poured on the altar from a bowl.

People consult idols and fortunetellers, but the answers they get are lies and nonsense. Some interpret dreams, but only mislead you; the comfort they give is useless. So the people wander about like lost sheep. They are in trouble because they have no leader.

The Lord says, "I am angry with those foreigners who rule my people, and I am going to punish them. The people of Judah are mine, and I, the Lord Almighty, will take care of them. They will be my powerful war-horses.

The people of Judah will be victorious like soldiers who trample their enemies in the mud of the streets. They will fight because the Lord is with them, and they will defeat even the enemy cavalry.

"I will make the people of Judah strong; I will rescue the people of Israel. I will have compassion on them and bring them all back home. They will be as though I had never rejected them. I am the Lord their God; I will answer their prayers.

"I will call my people and gather them together. I will rescue them and make them as numerous as they used to be.

Though I have scattered them among the nations, yet in far-off places they will remember me. They and their children will survive and return home together.

When they pass through their sea of trouble, I, the Lord , will strike the waves, and the depths of the Nile will go dry. Proud Assyria will be humbled, and mighty Egypt will lose her power.

I will make my people strong; they will worship and obey me." The Lord has spoken.

Their owners kill them and go unpunished. They sell the meat and say, ‘Praise the Lord ! We are rich!' Even their own shepherds have no pity on them."

So the covenant was canceled on that day. Those who bought and sold the sheep were watching me, and they knew that the Lord was speaking through what I did.

The Lord said to me, "Put them in the Temple treasury." So I took the thirty pieces of silver—the magnificent sum they thought I was worth—and put them in the Temple treasury.

"I will make Jerusalem like a cup of wine; the nations around her will drink and stagger like drunks. And when they besiege Jerusalem, the cities of the rest of Judah will also be besieged.

"I will fill the descendants of David and the other people of Jerusalem with the spirit of mercy and the spirit of prayer. They will look at the one whom they stabbed to death, and they will mourn for him like those who mourn for an only child. They will mourn bitterly, like those who have lost their first-born son.

And I will test the third that survives and will purify them as silver is purified by fire. I will test them as gold is tested. Then they will pray to me, and I will answer them. I will tell them that they are my people, and they will confess that I am their God."

The Lord will bring a terrible disease on all the nations that make war on Jerusalem. Their flesh will rot away while they are still alive; their eyes and their tongues will rot away.

The men of Judah will fight to defend Jerusalem. They will take as loot the wealth of all the nations—gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.

This will be the punishment that will fall on Egypt and on all the other nations if they do not celebrate the Festival of Shelters.