Study Desk

For on My holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel," says the Lord God, "all the people of Israel will serve Me in the land. There I will receive them. And there I will ask for the best of your gifts, with all your holy things.

There you will remember your ways and all the bad things you did to make yourselves sinful. And you will hate yourselves in your own eyes for all the sinful things you have done.

As for you, son of man, cry in sorrow in front of them, as if your heart is breaking.

Cry out in a loud voice, son of man, for the sword is against My people. It is against all the leaders of Israel. They are going to be killed with My people, so beat your upper leg in sorrow.

"Son of man, make two ways for the king of Babylon to come with his sword. Both of them will come from the same land. Mark the way where the road divides and goes to the city.

Mark a way for the sword to go to Rabbah of the Ammonites, and to Judah into the strong city of Jerusalem.

For the king of Babylon stands where the road divides in two to use strange secret powers. He shakes the arrows and speaks with false gods, and looks at the liver.

In his right hand is the arrow marked for Jerusalem. It tells him to set up objects to knock down the city walls, to call out the battle cry, to set up objects to break down the gates, and to build a wall of dirt and battle towers.

Even with the false dreams about you, and the lies spoken about you by using secret ways, you will be laid on the necks of the sinful who are killed, whose day has come for their last punishment.

You will be destroyed by fire. You will be killed in your land, and you will not be remembered. For I, the Lord, have spoken.'"

They have not honored father and mother within you. They have made it hard for the stranger living among you. They have done wrong to those in you who have lost their father or husband.

In you they have taken pay to kill people. You have made others pay back more than they owe you. You have hurt your neighbors by making it hard for them to pay you. And you have forgotten Me," says the Lord God.

"I will bring My hand down hard upon the money you have made by your sinful ways, and for the blood of those you have killed among you.

Her men who speak in My name have covered these sins with whitewash for the people. They see false dreams and lie to them using their secret ways, saying, ‘This is what the Lord God says,' when the Lord has not spoken.

The people of the land have made it hard for others and have stolen. They have done wrong to the poor and those in need. And they have made it hard for the stranger who lives among them, taking away his rights.

I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before Me in the place where it is broken, to stop Me from destroying the land, but I found no one.

So I have become angry with them. I have destroyed them with the fire of My anger. I am punishing them for what they have done," says the Lord God.

"Oholah sold the use of her body while she was Mine. She was full of desire for her lovers, the Assyrians who lived near her

She gave her body to them for sex. They were all the best men of Assyria. And she also sinned by worshiping the false gods of all the men she desired.

"Her sister Oholibah saw this, but she was more sinful in her desire for sex than Oholah. Her sex sins were worse than those of her sister.