Study Desk

The nation of Israel will be ruined, because it fought against God. The people of Israel will die in war; their children will be torn to pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open."

Israel, return to the Lord your God, because your sins have made you fall.

A wise person will know these things, and an understanding person will take them to heart. The Lord 's ways are right. Good people live by following them, but those who turn against God die because of them.

Priests, put on your rough cloth and cry to show your sadness. Servants of the altar, cry out loud. Servants of my God, keep your rough cloth on all night to show your sadness. Cry because there will be no more grain or drink offerings to offer in the Temple of your God.

Call for a day when everyone fasts! Tell everyone to stop work! Bring the elders and everyone who lives in the land to the Temple of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord .

Our food is taken away while we watch. Joy and happiness are gone from the Temple of our God.

Tearing your clothes is not enough to show you are sad; let your heart be broken. Come back to the Lord your God, because he is kind and shows mercy. He doesn't become angry quickly, and he has great love. He can change his mind about doing harm.

Who knows? Maybe he will turn back to you and leave behind a blessing for you. Grain and drink offerings belong to the Lord your God.

The priests, the Lord 's servants, should cry between the altar and the entrance to the Temple. They should say, " Lord , have mercy on your people. Don't let them be put to shame; don't let other nations make fun of them. Don't let people in other nations ask, ‘Where is their God?'"

So be happy, people of Jerusalem; be joyful in the Lord your God. Because he does what is right, he has brought you rain; he has sent the fall rain and the spring rain for you, as before.

Then you will have plenty to eat and be full. You will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has done miracles for you. My people will never again be shamed.

Then you will know that I am among the people of Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other God. My people will never be shamed again.

"Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, live on my holy Mount Zion. Jerusalem will be a holy place, and strangers will never even go through it again.

I will destroy the king of the city of Ashdod, as well as the leader of Ashkelon. Then I will turn against the people of the city of Ekron, and the last of the Philistines will die," says the Lord God .

As they worship at their altars, they lie down on clothes taken from the poor. They fine people, and with that money they buy wine to drink in the house of their god.

Before the Lord God does anything, he tells his plans to his servants the prophets.

The lion has roared! Who wouldn't be afraid? The Lord God has spoken. Who will not prophesy?

So this is what the Lord God says: "An enemy will take over the land and pull down your strongholds; he will take the treasures out of your strong buildings."

"Listen and be witnesses against the family of Jacob," says the Lord God , the God All-Powerful.

The Lord God has promised this: "Just as surely as I am a holy God, the time will come when you will be taken away by hooks, and what is left of you with fishhooks.