Study Desk

Look, he comes up like the clouds, and his chariots are like the whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles, woe to us, for we are devastated.

I looked and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all of its cities were ruined before Yahweh, before the face of his burning anger.

They were well-fed lusty horses, they neighed each to the wife of his neighbor.

Shepherds and their flocks will come against her, they will pitch their tents against her all around, they will pasture, each his portion.

Therefore thus says Yahweh: "Look, I am about to put before this people stumbling blocks, and they will stumble against them, fathers and children together, neighbor and his friend will perish."

For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor,

Shear your hair and throw it away, and lift up a lament on the barren heights, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.'

I have listened attentively, and I have listened. They do not speak honestly, there is no man who regrets his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?' All of them are turning to their ways of running, like a horse plunging into battle.

"Let everyone be on your guard against his neighbor, and you must not trust in any brother, for everyone surely betrays, and every neighbor goes about with slander.

And everyone deceives his neighbor, and they do not speak the truth, they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are tired from going astray.

Their tongue is a murderous arrow, it speaks deceit. With his mouth he speaks peace with his neighbor, but in his inner parts he sets up his ambush.

For hear, O women, the word of Yahweh, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters a lamentation, and each woman her neighbor a lament.

Thus says Yahweh, "The wise man must not boast in his wisdom, and the warrior must not boast in his might, the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth.

But Yahweh is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king. Because of his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his anger.

He is the maker of the earth by his power, who created the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding he stretched out heaven.

When he utters his voice there is a noise of water in the heavens, and he causes the mist to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he causes the wind to go out from his storehouses.

Everyone is stupid, without knowledge, every goldsmith is ashamed by his divine image, for his cast image is an illusion, and there is no breath in them.

The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the creator of everything, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance, Yahweh of hosts is his name.

I know, O Yahweh, that to the human is not his own way, nor to a person is the walking and the directing of his own step.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on the peoples that do not call on your name, for they have devoured Jacob, they have devoured and consumed him, and they have caused his settlement to be desolate.