Study Desk

For when I had brought them into the land, which I lifted up mine hand to give unto them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering, there also they made their sweet savour, and they poured out there their drink offerings.

and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me; I will bring them forth out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord GOD.

Cry and howl, son of man: for it is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel: they are delivered over to the sword with my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.

Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they twain shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.

And it shall be unto them as a vain divination in their sight, which have sworn oaths unto them: but he bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.

In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee, have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.

Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood: and in thee they have eaten upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness.

In thee have they taken bribes to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by oppression, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.

Son of man, the house of Israel is become dross unto me: all of them are brass and tin and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver.

As they gather silver and brass and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will lay you there, and melt you.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in the midst thereof.

Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey; to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yea, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

and they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.

And the names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bare sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

Neither hath, she left her whoredoms since the days of Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the teats of her virginity: and they poured out their whoredom upon her.

These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and her they slew with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments upon her.

And I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.