Study Desk

Nothing can heal your hurt. Your sore cannot be cured. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you. For who has not suffered under your sinful ways again and again?

O Lord, how long must I call for help before You will hear? I cry out to You, "We are being hurt!" But You do not save us.

The Law is not followed. What is right is never done. For the sinful are all around those who are right and good, so what is right looks like sin.

"Look among the nations, and see! Be surprised and full of wonder! For I am doing something in your days that you would not believe if you were told.

For it is not yet time for it to come true. The time is coming in a hurry, and it will come true. If you think it is slow in coming, wait for it. For it will happen for sure, and it will not wait.

As for the proud one, his soul is not right in him. But the one who is right and good will live by his faith.

"Also, wine fools the proud man, so he does not stay at home. He is like the grave who always wants more. Like death, he never has enough. He gathers all nations for himself, and gathers all people for his own.

"Will not all these people make fun of him and say, ‘It is bad for him who gathers what is not his and makes himself rich with other people's money. How long will this go on?'

Because you have robbed many nations, the rest of them will rob you. For you have killed men. You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.

"It is bad for him who builds his house by sinful ways, to put his nest in a high place to be safe from trouble!

"It is bad for him who builds a city with blood, and builds a town with wrong-doing!

Is it not the will of the All-powerful Lord that people work for what will burn up and nations make themselves tired for nothing?

For the earth will be filled with knowing of the Lord's shining-greatness, as the waters cover the sea.

"It is bad for him who makes his neighbors drink, mixing in his poison to make them drunk, so he can look on their shame!

"Of what worth is a false god when a workman has made it? Of what worth is an object of worship, a teacher of lies? For the workman trusts in his own work when he makes these false gods that cannot speak.

It is bad for him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Wake up!' or to a stone that cannot speak, ‘Get up!' Can this teach you? See, it is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it.

I heard and my body shook. My lips shook at the sound. My bones began to waste away and my legs shook. Yet I will be quiet and wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who fight against us.

The Lord God is my strength. He has made my feet like the feet of a deer, and He makes me walk on high places. This is for the song leader, on my different kinds of harps.

I will destroy those who have turned back from following the Lord, and those who have not looked for the Lord or prayed to Him."

Be quiet before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has made a gift ready for the altar. He has made holy those whom He has asked to come.