Study Desk

I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.

For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.

I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward," says the Lord of hosts.

For thus says the Lord , who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): "I am the Lord , and there is no other.

"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.

remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,

I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory."

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate.

Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms.

But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing.

Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before!

For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name.

You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

"For my name's sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.

"There is no peace," says the Lord , "for the wicked."

But I said, "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord , and my recompense with my God."

And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord , and my God has become my strength—