Study Desk

"Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness, For shedding innocent blood, And practicing oppression and violence."

Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: "They shall not lament for him, Saying, "Alas, my brother!' or "Alas, my sister!' They shall not lament for him, Saying, "Alas, master!' or "Alas, his glory!'

"Go up to Lebanon, and cry out, And lift up your voice in Bashan; Cry from Abarim, For all your lovers are destroyed.

The wind shall eat up all your rulers, And your lovers shall go into captivity; Surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated For all your wickedness.

Thus says the LORD: "Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah."'

Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: "You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings," says the LORD.

For the land is full of adulterers; For because of a curse the land mourns. The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up. Their course of life is evil, And their might is not right.

"For both prophet and priest are profane; Yes, in My house I have found their wickedness," says the LORD.

"Therefore their way shall be to them Like slippery ways; In the darkness they shall be driven on And fall in them; For I will bring disaster on them, The year of their punishment," says the LORD.

"Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: "Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, And make them drink the water of gall; For from the prophets of Jerusalem Profaneness has gone out into all the land."'

For who has stood in the counsel of the LORD, And has perceived and heard His word? Who has marked His word and heard it?

who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.

"And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, "The oracle of the LORD!' I will even punish that man and his house.

And the oracle of the LORD you shall mention no more. For every man's word will be his oracle, for you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.

"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: "Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans.

For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.

Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

I will deliver them to trouble into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their harm, to be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them.

"Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,' says the LORD; "and I will make it a perpetual desolation.

(For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)"'