Study Desk

He was angry, and he destroyed all the strength of Israel. He took away his right hand from Israel. He did this when the enemy came. He burned like a flaming fire in Jacob. He was like a fire that burns all around.

He bent his bow like an enemy. He held his sword in his right hand. He killed all the good-looking men of Judah. He killed them as if they were the enemy. He poured out his anger like a fire on the tents of Zion.

He pulled up his own tent as if it were a garden. He has ruined the place where the people came together to worship him. The Lord has made people forget the special assemblies and special days of rest in Zion. He rejected the king and the priests. He was angry and rejected them.

He rejected his altar, and he left his holy place of worship. He let the enemy pull down the walls of the palaces of Jerusalem. The enemy shouted with joy in the Lord 's Temple. They made noise as though it were a festival.

He turned his hand against me. He did this again and again, all day.

He made his bow ready. He made me the target for his arrows.

He shot me in the stomach with his arrows.

It is good for a man to wear his yoke from the time he is young.

He should sit alone and be quiet when the Lord puts his yoke on him.

He should turn his cheek to the one who hits him and let people insult him.

When he punishes, he also has mercy. He has mercy because of his great love and kindness.

The Lord used all of his anger. He poured out all his anger. He made a fire in Zion that burned it down to the foundations.

The king was very important to us. He was like the breath we breathe, but he was trapped by them. The Lord himself chose the king, and we said this about the king, "We will live in his shadow. He protects us from the nations."

I looked at him from his waist up. He looked like hot metal with fire all around him. I looked at him from his waist down. It looked like fire with a glow that was shining all around him.

The enemy with his sword is outside the city. Disease and hunger is inside the city. If some people go out into the fields, enemy soldiers will kill them. If they stay in the city, hunger and disease will destroy them.

They will throw their silver idols into the streets. They will treat their gold statues like dirty rags, because those things will not be able to save them when the Lord shows his anger. Those things were nothing but a trap that caused the people to fall. They will not give food to the people or put food in their bellies.

Then I noticed that Jaazaniah son of Shaphan and the 70 elders of Israel were there with the people worshiping in that place. There they were, right at the front of the people, and each leader had his own incense dish in his hand. The smoke from the burning incense was rising into the air.

Then God said to me, "Son of man, do you see what the elders of Israel do in the dark? Each man has a special room for his own false god. They say to themselves, ‘The Lord cannot see us. The Lord left this country.'"

Then God shouted to the leaders in charge of punishing the city. Each leader had his own destructive weapon in his hand.

Then I saw six men walking on the road from the upper gate. This gate is on the north side. Each man had his own deadly weapon in his hand. One of the men wore linen clothes. He wore a scribe's pen and ink set at his waist. Those men went to the bronze altar in the Temple and stood there.