Study Desk

And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, 'It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.'

who say to a tree, 'You are my father,' and to a stone, 'You gave me birth.' For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, 'Arise and save us!'

But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah.

will he be angry for ever, will he be indignant to the end?' Behold, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could."

And I thought, 'After she has done all this she will return to me'; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it.

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the harlot.

Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD."

"But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

"For my people are foolish, they know me not; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but how to do good they know not."

O LORD, do not thy eyes look for truth? Thou hast smitten them, but they felt no anguish; thou hast consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.

I will go to the great, and will speak to them; for they know the way of the LORD, the law of their God." But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.

"Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but make not a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD's.

"But even in those days, says the LORD, I will not make a full end of you.

"Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.

the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

For thus says the LORD of hosts: "Hew down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city which must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.

Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'