Study Desk

When they say to you, "Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter," should a people not consult their God? Should they consult the dead in behalf of the living?

The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.

For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

The Lord sends a message against Jacob, And it falls on Israel.

So the LORD cuts off head and tail from Israel, Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day.

For wickedness burns like a fire; It consumes briars and thorns; It also sets the thickets of the forest aflame And they roll upward in a column of smoke.

I send it against a godless nation And commission it against the people of My fury To capture spoils and to seize plunder, And to trample them down like mud in the streets.

For he has said, "By the power of my hand and by my wisdom I did this, Because I have understanding; And I removed the boundaries of the peoples And plundered their treasures, And like a powerful man I brought down their inhabitants,

And my hand reached to the riches of the peoples like a nest, And as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth; And there was not one that flapped its wing, opened its beak, or chirped."

Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it? Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it, Or like a rod lifting the one who is not wood.

Therefore the Lord, the GOD of armies, will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors; And under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame.

And the Light of Israel will become a fire and Israel's Holy One a flame, And it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day.

And He will destroy the glory of his forest and of his fruitful garden, both soul and body, And it will be as when a sick person wastes away.

And the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small in number That a child could write them down.

A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

For though your people, Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.

For a complete destruction, one that is determined, the Lord GOD of armies will execute in the midst of the whole land.

"For in a very little while My indignation against you will be ended and My anger will be directed toward their destruction."

The LORD of armies will wield a whip against him like the defeat of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and His staff will be over the sea, and He will lift it up the way He did in Egypt.

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch from his roots will bear fruit.