Study Desk

I will have them smashed against one another, fathers and sons together, says the Lord: I will have no pity or mercy, I will have no feeling for them to keep me from giving them to destruction.

Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up: for these are the words of the Lord.

Give glory to the Lord your God, before he makes it dark, and before your feet are slipping on the dark mountains, and, while you are looking for a light, he makes it into deep dark, into black night.

But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Make yourselves low, be seated on the earth: for the crown of your glory has come down from your heads.

Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be changed, or the markings on the leopard? Then it might be possible for you to do good, who have been trained to do evil.

Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.

Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads.

And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass.

Though our sins give witness against us, do something, O Lord, for the honour of your name: for again and again we have been turned away from you, we have done evil against you.

O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why are you like one who is strange in the land, and like a traveller putting up his tent for a night?

This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even so they have been glad to go from the right way; they have not kept their feet from wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep their wrongdoing in mind and send punishment for their sins.

And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this people for their good.

And the people to whom they are prophets will be pushed out dead into the streets of Jerusalem, because there is no food, and because of the sword; and they will have no one to put their bodies into the earth, them or their wives or their sons or their daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing on them.

And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be streaming with water night and day, and let it not be stopped; for the virgin daughter of my people is wounded with a great wound, with a very bitter blow.

If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.

Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul turned in disgust from Zion? why have you given us blows from which there is no one to make us well? we were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there was only a great fear.

Are any of the false gods of the nations able to make rain come? are the heavens able to give showers? are you not he, O Lord our God? so we will go on waiting for you, for you have done all these things.

Then the Lord said to me, Even if Moses and Samuel came before me, I would have no desire for this people: send them away from before me, and let them go.

And it will be, when they say to you, Where are we to go? then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are to be in need of food, to need of food; and such as are to be taken away prisoners, to be taken away.