Study Desk

For thus says Yahweh, "Look, I am about to sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and I will bring distress to them, so that they may feel it."

which I commanded your ancestors in the day of my bringing them from the land of Egypt, from the furnace of iron, saying, ‘Listen to my voice and do according to all that I command you, so will you be my people, and I will be your God.'

in order to keep the oath that I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day."'" Then I answered and said, "Let it be so, O Yahweh."

And I was like a gentle ram-lamb that is brought to slaughter, and I did not know that they planned plans against me, saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered."

You will be in the right, O Yahweh, when I complain to you. Even so, let me speak my claims with you. Why does the way of the wicked succeed? All those who deal treacherously with treachery are at ease.

So I bought the loincloth according to the word of Yahweh and I put it on my loins.

So I went and hid it by the Euphrates just as Yahweh had commanded me.

"Thus says Yahweh: ‘So I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.

For as the loincloth clings to the loins of a person, so I caused to cling to me all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah,' declares Yahweh, ‘to be for me a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.'

So in turn I will bare your skirts over your face, and your shame will become visible.

Thus says Yahweh concerning this people: "They have loved so much to wander, they have not spared their feet. Therefore Yahweh is not favorable to them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins."

So Yahweh said to me, "You must not pray for this people, for their happiness.

Have you completely rejected Judah? Or has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us so that there is no healing for us? We hope for peace, but there is no good, and for a time of healing, but look, there is terror.

You have forsaken me," declares Yahweh. "You go backward, so I have stretched my hand against you, and I have destroyed you. I am tired of becoming remorseful.

So I will throw you from this land to the land that you have not known, you or your ancestors, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will not show you favor.

As the remembering of their children, so is the remembering of their altars and their poles of Asherah worship beside the leafy trees on the high hills.

Yet they did not listen, and they did not incline their ear, and they hardened their neck so as to not hear, nor to receive discipline.

So I went down to the house of the potter and look, there he was doing work at the potter's wheels.

And the vessel that he was making with the clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so he made again another vessel, as it was right in the eyes of the potter to make.

"Like this potter, am I not able to do to you, O house of Israel?" declares Yahweh. "Look, like the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.