Study Desk

All of them are stubbornly rebellious, Going about as a slanderer; They are bronze and iron. They are, all of them, corrupt.

"For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a person and his neighbor,

"Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I Myself have seen it," declares the LORD.

"As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not plead with Me; for I am not listening to you.

'Cut off your hair and throw it away, And take up a song of mourning on the bare heights; For the LORD has rejected and forsaken The generation of His wrath.'

"Then I will eliminate from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a site of ruins.

"I have listened and heard, They have spoken what is not right; No one repented of his wickedness, Saying, 'What have I done?' Everyone turned to his own course, Like a horse charging into the battle.

"How can you say, 'We are wise, And the Law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie.

We waited for peace, but no good came; For a time of healing, but behold, terror!

Behold, listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not within her?" "Why have they provoked Me with their carved images, with foreign idols?"

Oh, that my head were waters And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For those slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the desert A travelers' lodging place; So that I might leave my people And go away from them! For all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous people.

"Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, And do not trust any brother; Because every brother utterly betrays, And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

"Their tongue is a deadly arrow; It speaks deceit; With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor, But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.

"Shall I not punish them for these things?" declares the LORD. "Shall I not avenge Myself On a nation such as this?

"I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, And for the pastures of the wilderness a song of mourning, Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, And the sound of the livestock is not heard; Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled; they are gone.

"I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, A haunt of jackals; And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant."

"Have them hurry and take up a wailing for us, So that our eyes may shed tears, And our eyelids flow with water.

"For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: 'How devastated we are! We are put to great shame, For we have abandoned the land Because they have torn down our homes.'"

Now hear the word of the LORD, you women, And let your ears receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And have every woman teach her neighbor a song of mourning.