Study Desk

I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the peoples.

You will summon a nation you do not know, and a nation that doesn't know you will run to you, for the sake of Adonai your God, the Holy One of Isra'el, who will glorify you."

Let the wicked person abandon his way and the evil person his thoughts; let him return to Adonai , and he will have mercy on him; let him return to our God, for he will freely forgive.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways," says Adonai .

For just as rain and snow fall from the sky and do not return there, but water the earth, causing it to bud and produce, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

Here is what Adonai says: "Observe justice, do what is right, for my salvation is close to coming, my righteousness to being revealed."

For here is what Adonai says: "As for the eunuchs who keep my Shabbats, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant:

I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples."

For thus says the High, Exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy: "I live in the high and holy place but also with the broken and humble, in order to revive the spirit of the humble and revive the hearts of the broken ones.

For I will not fight them forever or always nurse my anger; otherwise their spirits would faint before me, the creatures I myself have made.

I have seen their ways, and I will heal them; I will lead them and give comfort to them and to those who mourn for them —

There is no shalom, says my God, for the wicked.

"Oh yes, they seek me day after day and [claim to] delight in knowing my ways. As if they were an upright nation that had not abandoned the rulings of their God, they ask me for just rulings and [claim] to take pleasure in closeness to God,

If you do, you will find delight in Adonai — I will make you ride on the heights of the land and feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Ya‘akov, for the mouth of Adonai has spoken."

For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with crime; your lips speak lies, your tongues utter wicked things.

Their webs are useless as clothing, their deeds are useless for wearing; their deeds are deeds of wickedness, their hands produce violence.

The way of shalom they do not know, their goings-about obey no law, they make devious paths for themselves; no one treading them will ever know shalom.

This is why justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn't catch up with us; we look for light, but see only darkness, for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

We grope for the wall like the blind; like people without eyes we feel our way; we stumble at noonday as if it were dusk, we are in dark places like the dead.

We growl, all of us, like bears and moan pitifully like doves; we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.