Study Desk

No one calls on your name,striving to take hold of you.For you have hidden your face from usand made us melt because of our iniquity.

for your iniquities and the iniquitiesof your fathers together,”says the Lord.“Because they burned incense on the mountainsand reproached me on the hills,I will reward them fullyfor their former deeds.”

I will destine you for the sword,and all of you will kneel down to be slaughtered,because I called and you did not answer,I spoke and you did not hear;you did what was evil in my sightand chose what I did not delight in.”

I observed that it was because unfaithful Israel had committed adultery that I had sent her away and had given her a certificate of divorce. Nevertheless, her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid but also went and prostituted herself.

Because of this, put on sackcloth;mourn and wail,for the Lord’s burning angerhas not turned away from us.

They have her surroundedlike those who guard a field,because she has rebelled against me.

Your way and your actionshave brought this on you.This is your punishment. It is very bitter,because it has reached your heart!

Because of this, the earth will mourn;the skies above will grow dark.I have spoken; I have planned,and I will not relent or turn back from it.

“‘But return to my place that was at Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first. See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.

Now, because you have done all these things—this is the Lord’s declaration—and because I have spoken to you time and time again but you wouldn’t listen, and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer,

“Therefore, look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when this place will no longer be called Topheth and Ben Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter. Topheth will become a cemetery, because there will be no other burial place.

Why are we just sitting here?Gather together; let us enter the fortified citiesand perish there,for the Lord our God has destroyed us.He has given us poisoned water to drink,because we have sinned against the Lord.

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned my instruction, which I set before them, and did not obey my voice or walk according to it.

Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch,their idols cannot speak.They must be carried because they cannot walk.Do not fear them for they can do no harm—and they cannot do any good.

Woe to me because of my brokenness—I am severely wounded!I exclaimed, “This is my intense suffering,but I must bear it.”

Yet they would not obey or pay attention; each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant, because they had not done what I commanded them to do.”

“The Lord of Armies who planted you has decreed disaster against you, because of the disaster the house of Israel and the house of Judah brought on themselves when they angered me by burning incense to Baal.”

How long will the land mournand the grass of every field wither?Because of the evil of its residents,animals and birds have been swept away,for the people have said,“He cannot see what our end will be.”

And when you ask yourself,“Why have these things happened to me?”it is because of your great guiltthat your skirts have been stripped off,your body exposed.

The people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. There will be no one to bury them—they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will pour out their own evil on them.”