Study Desk

Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase: all who made attacks on him were judged as wrongdoers, evil came on them, says the Lord.

The young lions have made an outcry against him with a loud voice: they have made his land waste; his towns are burned up, with no one living in them.

And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

Will he be angry for ever? will he keep his wrath to the end? These things you have said, and have done evil and have had your way.

A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods, and one who makes waste the nations is on his way; he has gone out from his place, to make your land unpeopled, so that your towns will be made waste, with no man living in them.

See, he will come up like the clouds, and his war-carriages like the storm-wind: his horses are quicker than eagles. Sorrow is ours, for destruction has come on us.

Looking, I saw that the fertile field was a waste, and all its towns were broken down before the Lord and before his burning wrath.

They were full of desire, like horses after a meal of grain: everyone went after his neighbour's wife.

They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in works of evil: they give no support to the cause of the child without a father, so that they may do well; they do not see that the poor man gets his rights.

Keepers of sheep with their flocks will come to her; they will put up their tents round her; everyone will get food in his place.

For this reason I am full of the wrath of the Lord, I am tired of keeping it in: may it be let loose on the children in the street, and on the band of the young men together: for even the husband with his wife will be taken, the old man with him who is full of days.

For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will put stones in the way of this people: and the fathers and the sons together will go falling over them; the neighbour and his friend will come to destruction.

Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Zion.

For if your ways and your doings are truly changed for the better; if you truly give right decisions between a man and his neighbour;

And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

At that time, says the Lord, they will take the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem out of their resting-places:

I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right: no man had regret for his evil-doing, saying, What have I done? everyone goes off on his way like a horse rushing to the fight.

The loud breathing of the horses comes to our ears from Dan: at the sound of the outcry of his war-horses, all the land is shaking with fear; for they have come, and have made a meal of the land and everything in it; the town and the people living in it.