Study Desk

"As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I assuredly shall be king over you.

"I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out;

and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

"Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you," declares the Lord GOD.

"As for you, house of Israel," this is what the Lord GOD says: "Go, serve, everyone of you his idols; but later you will certainly listen to Me, and My holy name you will no longer defile with your gifts and your idols.

"For on My holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "there the entire house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land; there I will accept them and there I will demand your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your holy things.

"Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have dealt with you in behalf of My name, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, house of Israel," declares the Lord GOD.'"

"As for you, son of man, groan with a breaking heart and bitter grief; you shall groan in their sight.

"And when they say to you, 'Why are you groaning?' you shall say, 'Because of the news, for it is coming; and every heart will melt, all hands will go limp, every spirit will be disheartened, and all knees will drip with water. Behold, it is coming and it will happen,' declares the Lord GOD."

"Cry out and wail, son of man; for it is against My people, it is against all the officials of Israel. They are turned over to the sword with My people, therefore slap your thigh.

"Into his right hand came the divination, 'Jerusalem,' to set up battering rams, to open the mouth for slaughter, to raise the voice with a battle cry, to set up battering rams against the gates, to pile up assault ramps, to build a siege wall.

'I will pour out My indignation on you; I will blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and I will hand you over to brutal men, craftsmen of destruction.

"They have treated father and mother with contempt among you. They have oppressed the stranger in your midst; they have oppressed the orphan and the widow among you.

"And one has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife, another has outrageously defiled his daughter-in-law, and another among you has sexually abused his sister, his father's daughter.

"Behold, then, I strike with My hand your profit which you have made and the bloodshed which is among you.

"Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong for the days that I will deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken and will act.

'And I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you will be melted in the midst of it.

"And her prophets have coated with whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, 'This is what the Lord GOD says,' when the LORD has not spoken.

"So I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; I have brought their way upon their heads," declares the Lord GOD.

"She bestowed her obscene practices on them, all of whom were the choicest men of Assyria; and with all whom she lusted after, with all their idols she defiled herself.