Study Desk

The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed, and taken: for they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.

Therefore will I give their women to strangers, their fields to others for an inheritance: because from the least even to the greatest all follow covetousness: from the prophet even to the priest all deal deceitfully.

Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord.

We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear.

For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me.

Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord.

Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully.

And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity.

Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?

Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.

Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?

For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed.

And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:

Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.

For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.