Study Desk

"Behold, I am making a rut in the ground beneath you, Just as a wagon makes a rut when filled with sheaves.

This is what the LORD says: "Just as the shepherd snatches from the lion's mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear, So will the sons of Israel living in Samaria be snatched away— With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch!

"I will also strike the winter house together with the summer house; The houses of ivory will also perish, And the great houses will come to an end," Declares the LORD.

The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness, "For behold, the days are coming upon you When they will take you away with meat hooks, And the last of you with fish hooks.

"I struck you with scorching wind and mildew; The caterpillar was devouring Your many gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees; Yet you have not returned to Me," declares the LORD.

"I sent a plague among you as in Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses, And I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me," declares the LORD.

"Seek the LORD so that you may live, Or He will break through like a fire, house of Joseph, And it will consume with no one to extinguish it for Bethel,

They hate him who rebukes in the gate, And they despise him who speaks with integrity.

Seek good and not evil, so that you may live; And so may the LORD God of armies be with you, Just as you have said!

As when a man flees from a lion And a bear confronts him, Or he goes home, leans with his hand against the wall, And a snake bites him.

Will the day of the LORD not be darkness instead of light, Even gloom with no brightness in it?

"Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, house of Israel?

Who drink wine from sacred bowls While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils— Yet they have not grieved over the collapse of Joseph.

Then one's uncle, or his undertaker, will lift him up to carry out his bones from the house, and he will say to the one who is in the innermost part of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" And that one will say, "No one." Then he will answer, "Keep quiet! For the name of the LORD is not to be mentioned."

Do horses run on rocks? Or does one plow them with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison, And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,

So the Lord GOD showed me, and behold, the Lord GOD was calling to contend with them by fire, and it consumed the great deep and began to consume the farmland.

So He showed me, and behold, the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand.

"The high places of Isaac will become deserted, And the sanctuaries of Israel will be in ruins. Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

saying, "When will the new moon be over, So that we may sell grain; And the Sabbath, so that we may open the wheat market, To make the ephah smaller and the shekel bigger, And to cheat with dishonest scales,

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said, "Strike the pillar capitals so that the thresholds will shake, And break them on the heads of them all! Then I will put to death the rest of them with the sword; They will not have a fugitive who will flee, Nor a survivor who will escape.