Study Desk

Yet she became an exile, She went into captivity; Also her small children were dashed to pieces At the head of every street; They cast lots for her honorable men, And all her great men were bound with fetters.

You too will become drunk, You will be hidden. You too will search for a refuge from the enemy.

Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

There is no relief for your breakdown, Your wound is incurable. All who hear about you Will clap their hands over you, For on whom has not your evil passed continually?

How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save.

Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.

"For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce and impetuous people Who march throughout the earth To seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

"All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand.

"For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

"Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

"Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him, Even mockery and insinuations against him And say, 'Woe to him who increases what is not his— For how long— And makes himself rich with loans?'

"Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, And those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them.

"Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house To put his nest on high, To be delivered from the hand of calamity!

"You have devised a shameful thing for your house By cutting off many peoples; So you are sinning against yourself.

"Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts That peoples toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing?

"For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea.

"For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them, Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants.

"What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork When he fashions speechless idols.

You went forth for the salvation of Your people, For the salvation of Your anointed. You struck the head of the house of the evil To lay him open from thigh to neck. Selah.

I heard and my inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, For the people to arise who will invade us.