Study Desk

O LORD, You will establish peace for us, for, indeed, all that we have accomplished, You have done for us.

Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.

For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and no longer conceal her slain.

Therefore Jacob's guilt will be atoned for, and the fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

For the fortified city will be deserted, a homestead abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness. There the calves will graze, and there they will lie down and strip its branches bare.

When its limbs are dry, they will be broken off. Women will come and use them for kindling, for they are a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker will have no compassion on them, and their Creator will show them no grace.

For all their tables are covered with vomit; there is not a place without filth.

For He says, "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there."

For you said, "We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place."

For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim. He will rouse Himself as in the valley of Gibeon, to do His work, His strange work, and to perform His task, His disturbing task.

Does the plowman plow for planting every day? Does he continuously loosen and harrow the soil?

For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

Grain for bread must be ground, but it is not endlessly threshed. Though the wheels of the cart roll over it, the horses do not crush it.

as when a hungry man dreams he is eating, then wakes and is still hungry. And like a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, then awakens faint and parched, so it will be for all the many nations who go to battle against Mount Zion.

For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep; He has shut your eyes, O prophets, and covered your heads, O seers.

For the ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who look for evil will be cut down-

For when he sees his children, the work of My hands among him, they will honor My name, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and they will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.

Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the days to come, a witness forever and ever.