Study Desk

Food won’t be provided for the mourner to comfort him because of the dead. A consoling drink won’t be given him for the loss of his father or mother.

For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.

So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.’

but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.

“I am about to send for many fishermen”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and they will fish for them. Then I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and out of the clefts of the rocks,

for my gaze takes in all their ways. They are not concealed from me, and their iniquity is not hidden from my sight.

I will first repay them double for their iniquity and sin because they have polluted my land. They have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of their abhorrent and detestable idols.”

Can one make gods for himself?But they are not gods.

You will, on your own, relinquish your inheritancethat I gave you.I will make you serve your enemiesin a land you do not know,for you have set my anger on fire;it will burn forever.

Lord, the hope of Israel,all who abandon youwill be put to shame.All who turn away from mewill be written in the dirt,for they have abandonedthe Lord, the fountain of living water.

Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;save me, and I will be saved,for you are my praise.

But I have not run away from being your shepherd,and I have not longed for the fatal day.You know my words were spoken in your presence.

But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.

Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or a word from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.”

Should good be repaid with evil?Yet they have dug a pit for me.Remember how I stood before youto speak good on their behalf,to turn your anger from them.

Let a cry be heard from their houseswhen you suddenly bring raiders against them,for they have dug a pit to capture meand have hidden snares for my feet.

I will spoil the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those who intend to take their life. I will provide their corpses as food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

and you are to proclaim to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Armies says: I will shatter these people and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be mended. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there is no other place for burials.

“This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its cities—every disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying my words.’”

for this is what the Lord says, ‘I am about to make you a terror to both yourself and those you love. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will deport them to Babylon and put them to the sword.