Study Desk

You are unfaithful children, but you belong to me. Come home! I'll take one or two of you from each town and clan and bring you to Zion.

I have always wanted to treat you as my children and give you the best land, the most beautiful on earth. I wanted you to call me "Father" and not turn from me.

I heard the Lord say, "My people ignore me. They are foolish children who do not understand that they will be punished. All they know is how to sin."

This nation will eat your crops and livestock; they will leave no fruit on your vines or trees. And although you feel safe behind thick walls, your towns will be destroyed and your children killed.

Your anger against Judah flames up inside me, and I can't hold it in much longer. The Lord answered: Don't hold back my anger! Let it sweep away everyone— the children at play and all adults, young and old alike.

So I will put stumbling blocks in your path, and everyone will die, including parents and children, neighbors and friends.

Children gather firewood, their fathers build fires, and their mothers mix dough to bake bread for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They even offer wine sacrifices to other gods, just to insult me.

At Topheth in Hinnom Valley you have built altars where you kill your children and burn them as sacrifices to other gods. I would never think of telling you to do this.

'We were in our fortress, but death sneaked in through our windows. It even struck down children at play and our strongest young men.'

Our homes are destroyed; our children are dead. No one is left to help us find shelter."

But I will punish them. Their young men will die in battle, and their children will starve to death.

There will be more widows in Judah than grains of sand on a beach. A surprise attack at noon! And the mothers in Jerusalem mourn for their children.

Jeremiah, don't get married and have children—Judah is no place to raise a family.

I'll tell you what's going to happen to children and their parents here.

But now I am asking you to let their children starve or be killed in war. Let women lose their husbands and sons to disease and violence.

The people of Judah stopped worshiping me and made this valley into a place of worship for Baal and other gods that have never helped them or their ancestors or their kings. And they have committed murder here, burning their young, innocent children as sacrifices to Baal. I have never even thought of telling you to do that.

And while your enemies are trying to break through your city walls to kill you, the food supply will run out. You will become so hungry that you will eat the flesh of your friends and even of your own children.

Jehoiachin, you are unwanted like a broken clay pot. So you and your children will be thrown into a country you know nothing about.

Erase the names of Jehoiachin's children from the royal records. He is a complete failure, and so none of them will ever be king. I, the Lord , have spoken.

Get married and have children, then help your sons find wives and help your daughters find husbands, so they can have children as well. I want your numbers to grow, not to get smaller.