Study Desk

I have listened and heard; they do not speak what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, asking, "What have I done?" Everyone has stayed his course like a horse charging into battle.

"Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.

Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.

Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.

Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.

This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.

But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation."

God made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar, and He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings the wind from His storehouses.

Everyone is senseless and devoid of knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud; they have no breath in them.

The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things: Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; the LORD of Hosts is His name.

I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps.

Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

Yet they would not obey or incline their ears, but each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant I commanded them to follow but they did not keep.'"

For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name will be remembered no more."

But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good-you who are accustomed to doing evil.

Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart, instead of obeying Me.

This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.