Study Desk

This they will have in return for their arrogance, because they have taunted and boasted against the people of the LORD of armies.

"On that day you will feel no shame Because of all your deeds By which you have rebelled against Me; For then I will remove from your midst Your proud, arrogant ones, And you will never again be haughty On My holy mountain.

"You start an ambitious project, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?" declares the LORD of armies. "It is because of My house which remains desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.

"Therefore, because of you the sky has withheld its dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.

And he said to him, "Run, speak to that young man there, saying, 'Jerusalem will be inhabited as open country because of the multitude of people and cattle within it.

"You there! Flee from the land of the north," declares the LORD, "because I have spread you out like the four winds of the heavens," declares the LORD.

"The LORD of armies says this: 'Old men and old women will again sit in the public squares of Jerusalem, each person with his staff in his hand because of age.

'For before those days there was no wage for man nor any wage for animal; and for him who went out or came in there was no peace because of his enemies, and I sent all the people against one another.

Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; Also Ekron, because her hope has been ruined. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon will not be inhabited.

But I will camp around My house because of an army, Because of him who passes by and returns; And no oppressor will pass over them anymore, For now I have seen with My eyes.

As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

For the household idols speak deception, And the diviners see an illusion And tell deceitful dreams; They comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep, They are wretched because there is no shepherd.

"And they will be like warriors, Trampling down the enemy in the mud of the streets in battle; And they will fight, because the LORD will be with them; And the riders on horses will be put to shame.

"And I will strengthen the house of Judah, And I will save the house of Joseph, And I will bring them back, Because I have had compassion on them; And they will be as though I had not rejected them, For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.

Wail, juniper, because the cedar has fallen, For the magnificent trees have been destroyed; Wail, oaks of Bashan, Because the impenetrable forest has come down.

"And if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, 'You shall not live, because you have spoken falsely in the name of the LORD'; and his father and mother who gave birth to him shall pierce him through when he prophesies.

but he will say, 'I am not a prophet; I am a cultivator of the ground, because a man sold me as a slave in my youth.'

"If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name," says the LORD of armies, "then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart.

And this is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and sighing, because He no longer gives attention to the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.

Yet you say, "For what reason?" Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your marriage companion and your wife by covenant.