Study Desk

"Therefore, son of man, pack up your belongings as if for exile. During the day, while they are watching, pretend to go into exile. Go from where you live to another place. Perhaps they will understand, although they are a rebellious house.

Bring out your belongings packed for exile during the day while they are watching. And go out at evening, while they are watching, as if for exile.

So I did just as I was commanded. I carried out my belongings packed for exile during the day, and at evening I dug myself a hole through the wall with my hands. I went out in the darkness, carrying my baggage on my shoulder while they watched.

Say, ‘I am an object lesson for you. Just as I have done, it will be done to them; they will go into exile and captivity.'

Then say to the people of the land, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says about the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel: They will eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water in fright, for their land will be stripped bare of all it contains because of the violence of all who live in it.

For there will no longer be any false visions or flattering omens amidst the house of Israel.

For I, the Lord , will speak. Whatever word I speak will be accomplished. It will not be delayed any longer. Indeed in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and accomplish it, declares the sovereign Lord .'"

"Take note, son of man, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for distant days; he is prophesying about the far future.'

You have not gone up in the breaks in the wall, nor repaired a wall for the house of Israel that it would stand strong in the battle on the day of the Lord .

those prophets of Israel who would prophesy about Jerusalem and would see visions of peace for it, when there was no peace," declares the sovereign Lord .'

"As for you, son of man, turn toward the daughters of your people who are prophesying from their imagination. Prophesy against them

and say ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to those who sew bands on all their wrists and make headbands for heads of every size to entrap people's lives! Will you entrap my people's lives, yet preserve your own lives?

You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. You have put to death people who should not die and kept alive those who should not live by your lies to my people, who listen to lies!

For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

"‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word—I, the Lord , have made a fool of that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

"For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments—sword, famine, wild animals, and plague—to Jerusalem to kill both people and animals!

Yet some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out. They will come out to you, and when you see their behavior and their deeds, you will be consoled about the catastrophe I have brought on Jerusalem—for everything I brought on it.

No! It is thrown in the fire for fuel; when the fire has burned up both ends of it and it is charred in the middle, will it be useful for anything?

"Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Like the wood of the vine is among the trees of the forest which I have provided as fuel for the fire—so I will provide the residents of Jerusalem as fuel.

As for your birth, on the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water; you were certainly not rubbed down with salt, nor wrapped with blankets.