Study Desk

God 's Message on the Ammonites: "Doesn't Israel have any children, no one to step into her inheritance? So why is the god Milcom taking over Gad's land, his followers moving into its towns? But not for long! The time's coming" — God 's Decree— "When I'll fill the ears of Rabbah, Ammon's big city, with battle cries. She'll end up a pile of rubble, all her towns burned to the ground. Then Israel will kick out the invaders. I, God , say so, and it will be so. Wail Heshbon, Ai is in ruins. Villages of Rabbah, wring your hands! Dress in mourning, weep buckets of tears. Go into hysterics, run around in circles! Your god Milcom will be hauled off to exile, and all his priests and managers right with him. Why do you brag of your once-famous strength? You're a broken-down has-been, a castoff Who fondles his trophies and dreams of glory days and vainly thinks, ‘No one can lay a hand on me.' Well, think again. I'll face you with terror from all sides." Word of the Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies. "You'll be stampeded headlong, with no one to round up the runaways. Still, the time will come when I will make things right with Ammon." God 's Decree.

The Message of God -of-the-Angel-Armies on Edom: "Is there nobody wise left in famous Teman? no one with a sense of reality? Has their wisdom gone wormy and rotten? Run for your lives! Get out while you can! Find a good place to hide, you who live in Dedan! I'm bringing doom to Esau. It's time to settle accounts. When harvesters work your fields, don't they leave gleanings? When burglars break into your house, don't they take only what they want? But I'll strip Esau clean. I'll search out every nook and cranny. I'll destroy everything connected with him, children and relatives and neighbors. There'll be no one left who will be able to say, ‘I'll take care of your orphans. Your widows can depend on me.'"

God 's Message to the prophet Jeremiah on Elam at the outset of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what God -of-the-Angel-Armies says: "Watch this! I'll break Elam's bow, her weapon of choice, across my knee. Then I'll let four winds loose on Elam, winds from the four corners of earth. I'll blow them away in all directions, landing homeless Elamites in every country on earth. They'll live in constant fear and terror among enemies who want to kill them. I'll bring doom on them, my anger-fueled doom. I'll set murderous hounds on their heels until there's nothing left of them. And then I'll set up my throne in Elam, having thrown out the king and his henchmen. But the time will come when I make everything right for Elam again." God 's Decree.

"But now, get out of Babylon as fast as you can. Be rid of that Babylonian country. On your way. Good sheepdogs lead, but don't you be led. Lead the way home! Do you see what I'm doing? I'm rallying a host of nations against Babylon. They'll come out of the north, attack and take her. Oh, they know how to fight, these armies. They never come home empty-handed. Babylon is ripe for picking! All her plunderers will fill their bellies!" God 's Decree.

And now this is what God -of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, has to say: "Just watch! I'm bringing doom on the king of Babylon and his land, the same doom I brought on the king of Assyria. But Israel I'll bring home to good pastures. He'll graze on the hills of Carmel and Bashan, On the slopes of Ephraim and Gilead. He will eat to his heart's content. In those days and at that time"— God 's Decree— "they'll look high and low for a sign of Israel's guilt—nothing; Search nook and cranny for a trace of Judah's sin—nothing. These people that I've saved will start out with a clean slate.

And here's more from God -of-the-Angel-Armies: "The people of Israel are beaten down, the people of Judah along with them. Their oppressors have them in a grip of steel. They won't let go. But the Rescuer is strong: God -of-the-Angel-Armies. Yes, I will take their side, I'll come to their rescue. I'll soothe their land, but rough up the people of Babylon.

"We did our best, but she can't be helped. Babylon is past fixing. Give her up to her fate. Go home. The judgment on her will be vast, a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.

"Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! God has stirred up the kings of the Medes, infecting them with war fever: ‘Destroy Babylon!' God 's on the warpath. He's out to avenge his Temple. Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls. Station guards around the clock. Bring in reinforcements. Set men in ambush. God will do what he planned, what he said he'd do to the people of Babylon. You have more water than you need, you have more money than you need— But your life is over, your lifeline cut."

By his power he made earth. His wisdom gave shape to the world. He crafted the cosmos. He thunders and rain pours down. He sends the clouds soaring. He embellishes the storm with lightnings, launches the wind from his warehouse. Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish! god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods! Their gods are frauds, dead sticks— deadwood gods, tasteless jokes. They're nothing but stale smoke. When the smoke clears, they're gone. But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing; he put the whole universe together, With special attention to Israel. His name? God -of-the-Angel-Armies!

"I'm your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer, you ravager of the whole earth. I'll reach out, I'll take you in my hand, and I'll crush you till there's no mountain left. I'll turn you into a gravel pit— no more cornerstones cut from you, No more foundation stones quarried from you! Nothing left of you but gravel." God 's Decree.

"Babylon must fall— compensation for the war dead in Israel. Babylonians will be killed because of all that Babylonian killing. But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death, get out! And fast! Remember God in your long and distant exile. Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory."

"I know, but trust me: The time is coming" — God 's Decree— "When I will bring doom on her no-god idols, and all over this land her wounded will groan. Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her, That wouldn't stop me. I'd make sure my avengers would reach her." God 's Decree.

"But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon! An unearthly wail out of Chaldea! God is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon. We'll be hearing the last of her noise— Death throes like the crashing of waves, death rattles like the roar of cataracts. The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon: Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed. Indeed, God is a God who evens things out. All end up with their just deserts.

God -of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!— will be flattened. And those city gates—huge gates!— will be set on fire. The harder you work at this empty life, the less you are. Nothing comes of ambition like this but ashes."

By the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn't so much as a crumb of bread for anyone. Then the Babylonians broke through the city walls. Under cover of the night darkness, the entire Judean army fled through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King's Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan into the Arabah Valley, but the Babylonians were in full pursuit. They caught up with them in the Plains of Jericho. But by then Zedekiah's army had deserted and was scattered.

Zion reached out for help, but no one helped. God ordered Jacob's enemies to surround him, and now no one wants anything to do with Jerusalem.

"I called to my friends; they betrayed me. My priests and my leaders only looked after themselves, trying but failing to save their own skins.

But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed. Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them! We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

Even wild jackals nurture their babies, give them their breasts to suckle. But my people have turned cruel to their babies, like an ostrich in the wilderness.