Study Desk

So my fierce wrath poured out and burned in Judah’s cities and Jerusalem’s streets so that they became the desolate ruin they are today.

“So now, this is what the Lord, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Why are you doing such terrible harm to yourselves? You are cutting off man and woman, infant and nursing baby from Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant.

The Lord can no longer bear your evil deeds and the detestable acts you have committed, so your land has become a waste, a desolation, and an example for cursing, without inhabitant, as you see today.

This will be a sign to you’—this is the Lord’s declaration—‘that I will punish you in this place, so you may know that my words of disaster concerning you will certainly come to pass.

While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast,and I will make them drunk so that they celebrate.Then they will fall asleep foreverand never wake up.

Say, ‘Lord, you have threatened to cut off this place so that no one will live in it—people or animals. Indeed, it will remain desolate forever.’

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the common people had no food.

The king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from its land.

So Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and he dined regularly in the presence of the king of Babylon for the rest of his life.

People have heard me groaning,but there is no one to comfort me.All my enemies have heard of my misfortune;they are glad that you have caused it.Bring on the day you have announced,so that they may become like me.

What can I say on your behalf?What can I compare you to, Daughter Jerusalem?What can I liken you to,so that I may console you, Virgin Daughter Zion?For your ruin is as vast as the sea.Who can heal you?

Your prophets saw visions for youthat were empty and deceptive;they did not reveal your iniquityand so restore your fortunes.They saw pronouncements for youthat were empty and misleading.

He has walled me in so I cannot get out;he has weighed me down with chains.

Blind, they stumbled in the streets,defiled by this blood,so that no one daredto touch their garments.

“Stay away! Unclean!” people shouted at them.“Away, away! Don’t touch us!” So they wandered aimlessly.It was said among the nations,“They can stay here no longer.”

So rejoice and be glad, Daughter Edom,you resident of the land of Uz!Yet the cup will pass to you as well;you will get drunk and expose yourself.

Lord, bring us back to yourself, so we may return;renew our days as in former times,

So I looked and saw a hand reaching out to me, and there was a written scroll in it.

So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll.

“Son of man,” he said to me, “feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.