Study Desk

Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under his wrath.’

“For the Judeans have done what is evil in my sight.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “They have set up their abhorrent things in the house that bears my name in order to defile it.

The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away.

I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride, for the land will become a desolate waste.

Therefore, I will give their wives to other men,their fields to new occupants,for from the least to the greatest,everyone is making profit dishonestly.From prophet to priest,everyone deals falsely.

Why are we just sitting here?Gather together; let us enter the fortified citiesand perish there,for the Lord our God has destroyed us.He has given us poisoned water to drink,because we have sinned against the Lord.

We hoped for peace, but there was nothing good;for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

If only I had a traveler’s lodging placein the wilderness,I would abandon my peopleand depart from them,for they are all adulterers,a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

They bent their tongues like their bows;lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,for they proceed from one evil to another,and they do not take me into account.

Everyone has to be on guard against his friend.Don’t trust any brother,for every brother will certainly deceive,and every friend spread slander.

Should I not punish them for these things?

I will raise weeping and a lamentover the mountains,a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,for they have been so scorchedthat no one passes through.The sound of cattle is no longer heard.From the birds of the sky to the animals,everything has fled—they have gone away.

For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:How devastated we are.We are greatly ashamed,for we have abandoned the land;our dwellings have been torn down.

for Death has climbed through our windows;it has entered our fortresses,cutting off children from the streets,young men from the squares.

But the one who boasts should boast in this:that he understands and knows me—that I am the Lord, showing faithful love,justice, and righteousness on the earth,for I delight in these things.

for the customs of the peoples are worthless.Someone cuts down a tree from the forest;it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.

Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch,their idols cannot speak.They must be carried because they cannot walk.Do not fear them for they can do no harm—and they cannot do any good.

When he thunders,the waters in the heavens are in turmoil,and he causes the clouds to risefrom the ends of the earth.He makes lightning for the rainand brings the wind from his storehouses.

Everyone is stupid and ignorant.Every goldsmith is put to shameby his carved image,for his cast images are a lie;there is no breath in them.

For this is what the Lord says: