Study Desk

Samaria will be made waste, for she has gone against her God: they will be cut down by the sword, their little children will be broken on the rocks, their women who are with child will be cut open.

Give the story of it to your children, and let them give it to their children, and their children to another generation.

Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy, send for the old men, get together the children and babies at the breast: let the newly married man come out of his room and the bride from her tent.

Be glad, then, you children of Zion, and have joy in the Lord your God: for he gives you food in full measure, making the rain come down for you, the early and the late rain as at the first.

And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it.

And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because in Gilead they had women with child cut open, so that they might make wider the limits of their land.

And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord.

Give ear to this word which the Lord has said against you, O children of Israel, against all the family which I took up out of the land of Egypt, saying,

These are the words of the Lord: As the keeper of sheep takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs or part of an ear; so will the children of Israel be made safe, who are resting in Samaria on seats of honour or on the silk cushions of a bed.

Let that which is leavened be burned as a praise-offering, let the news of your free offerings be given out publicly; for this is pleasing to you, O children of Israel, says the Lord.

Give ear to this word, my song of sorrow over you, O children of Israel.

For these are the words of the Lord to the children of Israel: Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have life:

Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Have I not taken Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir?

Do not see with pleasure your brother's evil day, the day of his fate, and do not be glad over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction, or make wide your mouth on the day of trouble.

But in Mount Zion some will be kept safe, and it will be holy; and the children of Jacob will take their heritage.

And the children of Jacob will be a fire and those of Joseph a flame, and the children of Esau dry stems of grass, burned up by them till all is gone: and there will be no people living in Esau; for the Lord has said it.

And those of the children of Israel who were the first to be taken away as prisoners, will have their heritage among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath; and those who were taken away from Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will have the towns of the South.