Study Desk

And He has treated His tabernacle violently, like a despised garden; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused The appointed feast and Sabbath in Zion to be forgotten, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger.

The Lord has rejected His altar, He has repudiated His sanctuary; He has handed over The walls of her palaces to the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As on the day of an appointed feast.

The LORD determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to mourn; They have languished together.

They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" As they faint like a wounded person In the streets of the city, As their lives are poured out In their mothers' arms.

All who pass along the way Clap their hands in ridicule at you; They hiss and shake their heads At the daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city of which they said, 'Perfect in beauty, A joy to all the earth'?"

Their heart cried out to the Lord: "You wall of the daughter of Zion, Let your tears stream down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief, Let your eyes have no rest.

He is to me like a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in secret places.

He bent His bow And took aim at me as a target for the arrow.

I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their song of ridicule all the day.

It is good for a man to bear The yoke in his youth.

To deprive a man of justice In the presence of the Most High,

You have veiled Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through.

My enemies without reason Hunted me down like a bird;

The precious sons of Zion, Weighed against pure gold, How they are regarded as earthenware jars, The work of a potter's hands!

For the wrongdoing of the daughter of my people Is greater than the sin of Sodom, Which was overthrown as in a moment, And no hands were turned toward her.

The LORD has expended His wrath, He has poured out His fierce anger; And He has kindled a fire in Zion, And it has consumed its foundations.

Yet our eyes failed, Looking for help was useless; At our observation point we have watched For a nation that could not save.

We have become orphans, without a father; Our mothers are like widows.

We have to pay for our drinking water, Our wood comes to us at a price.

As I looked, behold, a high wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing intermittently and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like gleaming metal in the midst of the fire.