Study Desk

And have spread them to sun, and to moon, And to all the host of the heavens, that they have loved, And that they have served, And that they have walked after, And that they have sought, And to which they have bowed themselves, They are not gathered, nor buried, They are for dung on the face of the ground.

Therefore, I give their wives to others, Their fields to dispossessors, For from the least even unto the greatest, Every one is gaining dishonest gain, From prophet even unto priest, every one is dealing falsely.

Wherefore are we sitting still? Be gathered, and we go in to the fenced cities, And we are silent there, For Jehovah our God hath made us silent, Yea, He causeth us to drink water of gall, For we have sinned against Jehovah.

Looking for peace -- and there is no good, For a time of healing, and lo, terror.

For, lo, I am sending among you serpents, Vipers that have no charmer, And they have bitten you, an affirmation of Jehovah.

My refreshing for me [is] sorrow, For me my heart [is] sick.

For a breach of the daughter of my people have I been broken, I have been black, astonishment hath seized me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? For wherefore hath not the health of the daughter of my people gone up?

Who doth make my head waters, And mine eye a fountain of tears? And I weep by day and by night, For the wounded of the daughter of my people.

Who doth give me in a wilderness A lodging-place of travellers? And I leave my people, and go from them, For all of them [are] adulterers, An assembly of treacherous ones.

And they bend their tongue, their bow [is] a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah!

Each of his friend -- beware ye, And on any brother, do not trust, For every brother doth utterly supplant, For every friend slanderously doth walk,

Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Lo, I am refining them, and have tried them, For how do I do because of the daughter of My people?

For these things do not I see after them? An affirmation of Jehovah, Against a nation such as this doth not My soul avenge itself?

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, And for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, For they have been burnt up without any passing over, Nor have they heard the voice of cattle, From the fowl of the heavens unto the beast they have fled, they have gone.

Who [is] the wise man? and he understandeth this, And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah spake? And he doth declare it, For what hath the land perished? It hath been burnt up as a wilderness, Without any passing through.

Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come,

And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.

For -- a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.

For death hath come up into our windows, It hath come into our palaces, To cut off the suckling from without, Young men from the broad places.