Study Desk

For they have been planting the wind, and their fruit will be the storm; his grain has no stem, it will give no meal, and if it does, a strange nation will take it.

He gives the offerings of his lovers, and takes the flesh for food; but the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep in mind their evil-doing and give them the punishment of their sins; they will go back to Egypt.

For Israel has no memory of his Maker, and has put up the houses of kings; and Judah has made great the number of his walled towns. But I will send a fire on his towns and put an end to his great houses.

The days of punishment, the days of reward are come; Israel will be put to shame; the prophet is foolish, the man who has the spirit is off his head, because of your great sin.

There is great hate against the watchman of Ephraim, the people of my God; as for the prophet, there is a net in all his ways, and hate in the house of his God.

Israel is a branching vine, full of fruit; as his fruit is increased, so the number of his altars is increased; as the land is fair, so they have made fair pillars.

He will go back to the land of Egypt and the Assyrian will be his king, because they would not come back to me.

And the sword will go through his towns, wasting his children and causing destruction because of their evil designs.

They will go after the Lord; his cry will be like that of a lion; his cry will be loud, and the children will come from the west, shaking with fear;

The Lord has a cause against Judah, and will give punishment to Jacob for his ways; he will give him the reward of his acts.

In the body of his mother he took his brother by the foot, and in his strength he was fighting with God;

He had a fight with the angel and overcame him; he made request for grace to him with weeping; he came face to face with him in Beth-el and there his words came to him;

Even the Lord, the God of armies; the Lord is his name.

As for Canaan, the scales of deceit are in his hands; he takes pleasure in twisted ways.

I have been bitterly moved to wrath by Ephraim; so that his blood will be on him, and the Lord will make his shame come back on him.

The wrongdoing of Ephraim is shut up; his sin is put away in secret.

The pains of a woman in childbirth will come on him: he is an unwise son, for at this time it is not right for him to keep his place when children come to birth.

Though he gives fruit among his brothers, an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the waste land, and his spring will become dry, his fountain will be without water: it will make waste the store of all the vessels of his desire.

I will be as the dew to Israel; he will put out flowers like a lily, and send out his roots like Lebanon.

His branches will be stretched out, he will be beautiful as the olive-tree and sweet-smelling as Lebanon.