Study Desk

From on high he has sent fire into my bones, and it has overcome them: his net is stretched out for my feet, I am turned back by him; he has made me waste and feeble all the day.

For these things I am weeping; my eye is streaming with water; because the comforter who might give me new life is far from me: my children are made waste, because the hater is strong.

See, O Lord, for I am in trouble; the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved; my heart is turned in me; for I have been uncontrolled: outside the children are put to the sword, and in the house there is death.

What example am I to give you? what comparison am I to make for you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what am I to make equal to you, so that I may give you comfort, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your destruction is great like the sea: who is able to make you well?

I am the man who has seen trouble by the rod of his wrath.

He has put a wall round me, so that I am not able to go out; he has made great the weight of my chain.

I have become the sport of all the peoples; I am their song all the day.

By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.

Waters were flowing over my head; I said, I am cut off.

Take note of them when they are seated, and when they get up; I am their song.

And he said to me, Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to an uncontrolled nation which has gone against me: they and their fathers have been sinners against me even to this very day.

And the children are hard and stiff-hearted; I am sending you to them: and you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord.

And he said to me, Son of man, let your stomach make a meal of it and let your inside be full of this roll which I am giving you. Then I took it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

Then he said to me, Son of man, take into your heart all my words which I am about to say to you, and let your ears be open to them.

And the Lord said, Even so the children of Israel will have unclean bread for their food among the nations where I am driving them.

For this cause the Lord has said: See, I, even I, am against you; and I will be judging among you before the eyes of the nations.

You mountains of Israel, give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and the hills, to the waterways and the valleys: See, I, even I, am sending on you a sword for the destruction of your high places.

And the dead will be falling down among you, and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

And they will be certain that I am the Lord: not for nothing did I say that I would do this evil to them.

And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images.