Jeremiah 12 Cross References - MSB

¹ Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? ² You planted them, and they have taken root. They have grown and produced fruit. You are ever on their lips, but far from their hearts. ³ But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage. ⁴ How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.” ⁵ “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? ⁶ Even your brothers—your own father’s household—even they have betrayed you; even they have cried aloud against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you. ⁷ I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the love of My life into the hands of her enemies. ⁸ My inheritance has become to Me like a lion in the forest. She has roared against Me; therefore I hate her. ⁹ Is not My inheritance to Me like a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go, gather all the beasts of the field; bring them to devour her. ¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland. ¹¹ They have made it a desolation; desolate before Me, it mourns. All the land is laid waste, but no man takes it to heart. ¹² Over all the barren heights in the wilderness the destroyers have come, for the sword of the LORD devours from one end of the earth to the other. No flesh has peace. ¹³ They have sown wheat but harvested thorns. They have exhausted themselves to no avail. Bear the shame of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the LORD.” ¹⁴ This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them. ¹⁵ But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land. ¹⁶ And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people. ¹⁷ But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation; I will uproot it and destroy it, declares the LORD.”

²⁵ Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

⁴ He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

¹⁵ O LORD, God of Israel, You are righteous! For we remain this day as a remnant. Here we are before You in our guilt, though because of it no one can stand before You.”

⁶ The tents of robbers are safe, and those who provoke God are secure—those who carry their god in their hands.

³ Yet I desire to speak to the Almighty and argue my case before God.

⁷ Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? ⁸ Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes. ⁹ Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them. ¹⁰ Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry. ¹¹ They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about, ¹² singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute. ¹³ They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace. ¹⁴ Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways. ¹⁵ Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

¹ Of David. Do not fret over those who do evil; do not envy those who do wrong.

³⁵ I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,

⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.

³ For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. ⁴ They have no struggle in their death; their bodies are well-fed. ⁵ They are free of the burdens others carry; they are not afflicted like other men. ⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; a garment of violence covers them. ⁷ From their prosperity proceeds iniquity; the imaginations of their hearts run wild. ⁸ They mock and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. ⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut across the earth. ¹⁰ So their people return to this place and drink up waters in abundance. ¹¹ The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” ¹² Behold, these are the wicked—always carefree as they increase their wealth. ¹³ Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure; in innocence I have washed my hands. ¹⁴ For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning. ¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak this way,” then I would have betrayed Your children. ¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this, it was troublesome in my sight ¹⁷ until I entered God’s sanctuary; then I discerned their end. ¹⁸ Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin. ¹⁹ How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors! ²⁰ Like one waking from a dream, so You, O Lord, awaken and despise their form. ²¹ When my heart was grieved and I was pierced within, ²² I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You. ²³ Yet I am always with You; You hold my right hand. ²⁴ You guide me with Your counsel, and later receive me in glory. ²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth I desire no one besides You. ²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ²⁷ Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You. ²⁸ But as for me, it is good to draw near to God. I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may proclaim all Your works.

⁷ that though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

³ How long will the wicked, O LORD, how long will the wicked exult? ⁴ They pour out arrogant words; all workers of iniquity boast.

⁷⁵ I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

¹³⁷ Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments.

¹⁷ The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.

³² For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

²¹ “Present your case,” says the LORD. “Submit your arguments,” says the King of Jacob.

⁸ You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

¹¹ For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the LORD.

²⁷ Like cages full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become powerful and rich. ²⁸ They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy.

²⁰ O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

⁶ Even your brothers—your own father’s household—even they have betrayed you; even they have cried aloud against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.

⁷ To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You.

⁷ But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.

⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

¹³ Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? ¹⁴ You have made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler. ¹⁵ The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly. ¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net, for by these things his portion is sumptuous and his food is rich. ¹⁷ Will he, therefore, empty his net and continue to slay nations without mercy?

⁵ The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the unjust know no shame.

¹⁵ So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”

⁵ But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms. ⁶ Certainly not! In that case, how could God judge the world?

¹³ Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.

¹⁰ Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.

¹⁷ The LORD of Hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you on account of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have brought upon themselves, provoking Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.”

⁴ Thus Jeremiah was to say to Baruch: “This is what the LORD says: Throughout the land I will demolish what I have built and uproot what I have planted.

⁵ He took some of the seed of the land and planted it in fertile soil; he placed it by abundant waters and set it out like a willow. ⁶ It sprouted and became a spreading vine, low in height, with branches turned toward him; yet its roots remained where it stood. So it became a vine and yielded branches and sent out shoots. ⁷ But there was another great eagle with great wings and many feathers. And behold, this vine bent its roots toward him. It stretched out its branches to him from its planting bed, so that he might water it. ⁸ It had been planted in good soil by abundant waters in order to yield branches and bear fruit and become a splendid vine.’ ⁹ So you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Will it flourish? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it shrivels? All its foliage will wither! It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by its roots. ¹⁰ Even if it is transplanted, will it flourish? Will it not completely wither when the east wind strikes? It will wither on the bed where it sprouted.’”

¹⁰ Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches because of the abundant waters. ¹¹ It had strong branches, fit for a ruler’s scepter. It towered high above the thick branches, conspicuous for its height and for its dense foliage. ¹² But it was uprooted in fury, cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were stripped off and they withered; the fire consumed them. ¹³ Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

³¹ So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

⁸ ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouths, and they honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.

⁶ Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.

¹⁶ They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

³ “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

¹⁷ I know, my God, that You test the heart and delight in uprightness. All these things I have given willingly and with an upright heart, and now I have seen Your people who are present here giving joyfully and willingly to You.

¹⁰ Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

⁹ Put an end to the evil of the wicked, but establish the righteous, O righteous God who searches hearts and minds.

⁵ The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked; His soul hates the lover of violence.

³ You have tried my heart; You have visited me in the night. You have tested me and found no evil; I have resolved not to sin with my mouth.

¹ Of David. Vindicate me, O LORD! For I have walked with integrity; I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.

²¹ would not God have discovered, since He knows the secrets of the heart? ²² Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

¹ For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O LORD, You have searched me and known me. ² You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar. ³ You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways. ⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.

¹⁹ For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.” ²⁰ O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

¹⁸ Let my persecutors be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified. Bring upon them the day of disaster and shatter them with double destruction.

²¹ Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. ²² Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. ²³ But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.

¹² O LORD of Hosts, who examines the righteous, who sees the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

¹⁵ Moab has been destroyed and its towns have been invaded; the best of its young men have gone down in the slaughter, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.

²⁷ Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them, for their day has come—the time of their punishment.

⁴ And they will fall slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in her streets.

¹⁷ Jesus asked a third time, “Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was deeply hurt that Jesus had asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” “Lord, You know all things,” he replied. “You know I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.

⁵ You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter.

²⁰ Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. ²¹ Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God,

²¹ You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.

³⁴ and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.

²⁵ I looked, and no man was left; all the birds of the air had fled.

²⁸ Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

¹³ The prophets are but wind, for the word is not in them. So let their own predictions befall them.”

³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

²⁰ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

¹⁰ I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.

² “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.

¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers—because of the curse, the land mourns and the pastures of the wilderness have dried up—their course is evil and their power is misused.

² “O son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. ³ The end is now upon you, and I will unleash My anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways and repay you for all your abominations. ⁴ I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Disaster! An unprecedented disaster—behold, it is coming! ⁶ The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. Behold, it has come! ⁷ Doom has come to you, O inhabitants of the land. The time has come; the day is near; there is panic on the mountains instead of shouts of joy. ⁸ Very soon I will pour out My wrath upon you and vent My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and repay you for all your abominations. ⁹ I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes the blow. ¹⁰ Behold, the day is here! It has come! Doom has gone out, the rod has budded, arrogance has bloomed. ¹¹ Their violence has grown into a rod to punish their wickedness. None of them will remain: none of their multitude, none of their wealth, and nothing of value. ¹² The time has come; the day has arrived. Let the buyer not rejoice and the seller not mourn, for wrath is upon the whole multitude. ¹³ The seller will surely not recover what he sold while both remain alive. For the vision concerning the whole multitude will not be revoked, and because of their iniquity, not one of them will preserve his life.

³ Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

¹⁰ The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails. ¹¹ Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. ¹² The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up. ¹³ Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. ¹⁴ Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. ¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the Day of the LORD is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. ¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes—joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷ The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods; the storehouses are in ruins; the granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered away.

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls,

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.

¹⁵ Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,

¹⁵ These are the ones who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they put to flight all those in the valleys, both to the east and to the west.

⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and waves have rolled over me.

¹ For the choirmaster. To the tune of “Lilies.” Of David. Save me, O God, for the waters are up to my neck. ² I have sunk into the miry depths, where there is no footing; I have drifted into deep waters, where the flood engulfs me.

¹¹ My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD, and do not loathe His rebuke;

¹⁰ If you faint in the day of distress, how small is your strength!

⁸ and as soon as he had finished telling all the people everything the LORD had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You must surely die!

²⁶ Instead, the king commanded Jerahmeel, a son of the king, as well as Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the LORD had hidden them.

⁴ Then the officials said to the king, “This man ought to die, for he is discouraging the warriors who remain in this city, as well as all the people, by speaking such words to them; this man is not seeking the well-being of these people, but their ruin.” ⁵ “Here he is,” replied King Zedekiah. “He is in your hands, since the king can do nothing to stop you.” ⁶ So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.

¹⁹ Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

⁴⁴ Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Babylon from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

³ Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

¹² Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you.

⁴ When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. ⁵ Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain in the field, and suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to mine.” ⁸ “Do you intend to reign over us?” his brothers asked. “Will you actually rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and his statements. ⁹ Then Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” ¹⁰ He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹ And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept in mind what he had said.

¹⁵ But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,

² They lie to one another; they speak with flattering lips and a double heart.

⁸ I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,

²⁵ When he speaks graciously, do not believe him, for seven abominations fill his heart.

⁴ For this is what the LORD has said to me: “Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey—and though a band of shepherds is called out against it, it is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their clamor—so the LORD of Hosts will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and its heights.

⁴ “Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.

¹⁹ For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”

²¹ Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the people of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, “You must not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand.”

¹⁰ For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.”

³⁰ As for you, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses. One speaks to another, each saying to his brother, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the LORD!’ ³¹ So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

⁵ Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms. ⁶ For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

²¹ Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death.

¹⁶ They sent their disciples to Him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that You are honest and that You teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You seek favor from no one, because You pay no attention to external appearance. ¹⁷ So tell us what You think: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus knew their evil intent and said, “You hypocrites, why are you testing Me?

¹² At this, the leaders sought to arrest Jesus, for they knew that He had spoken this parable against them. But fearing the crowd, they left Him and went away.

⁵ For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.

²² The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered that they be stripped and beaten with rods.

¹² While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews coordinated an attack on Paul and brought him before the judgment seat.

²⁴ It began with a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, bringing much business to the craftsmen. ²⁵ Demetrius assembled the craftsmen, along with the workmen in related trades. “Men,” he said, “you know that this business is our source of prosperity. ²⁶ And you can see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in nearly the whole province of Asia, Paul has persuaded a great number of people to turn away. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. ²⁷ There is danger not only that our business will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited and her majesty deposed—she who is worshiped by all the province of Asia and the whole world.” ²⁸ When the men heard this, they were enraged and began shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” ²⁹ Soon the whole city was in disarray. They rushed together into the theatre, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia.

²⁸ crying out, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches everywhere against our people and against our law and against this place. Furthermore, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” ²⁹ For they had seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple. ³⁰ The whole city was stirred up, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut.

⁵⁹ On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely. ⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

⁶ For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east; they are soothsayers like the Philistines; they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

¹⁴ therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers.

²⁹ Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

¹⁵ What right has My beloved in My house, having carried out so many evil schemes? Can consecrated meat avert your doom, so that you can rejoice?

⁵ For Israel and Judah have not been abandoned by their God, the LORD of Hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.”

¹ How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger. ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes. ³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. ⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. ⁵ The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. ⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest. ⁷ The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast. ⁸ The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away. ⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD. ¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. ¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. ¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers. ¹³ What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you? ¹⁴ The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading. ¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!” ¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes. ¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. ²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? ²¹ Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion. ²² You summoned my attackers on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

²⁰ His beautiful ornaments they transformed into pride and used them to fashion their vile images and detestable idols. Therefore I will make these into something unclean for them. ²¹ And I will hand these things over as plunder to foreigners and loot to the wicked of the earth, who will defile them.

²¹ Tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I am about to desecrate My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and the delight of your soul. And the sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword.’

¹⁵ All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them from My house for the wickedness of their deeds. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

¹⁵ Blow the ram’s horn in Zion, consecrate a fast, proclaim a sacred assembly.

² I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning My people, My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations as they divided up My land.

²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

¹⁵ The young lions have roared at him; they have growled with a loud voice. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.

³⁸ They will roar together like young lions; they will growl like lion cubs.

⁸ The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself—the LORD, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

⁸ And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.

² And the LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servants the prophets.

⁹ Come, all you beasts of the field; eat greedily, all you beasts of the forest.

³³ The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away.

³ I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

³⁶ This is what the Lord GOD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them, ³⁷ therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked.

²² Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side— ²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them—all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses. ²⁴ They will come against you with a host of peoples, with weapons, chariots, and wagons. They will array themselves against you on every side with buckler and shield and helmet. I will delegate judgment to them, and they will punish you according to their own standards. ²⁵ And I will set My jealous rage against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and ears, and your survivors will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your remnant will be consumed by fire.

¹⁷ And as for you, son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says: Call out to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble and come together from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great feast on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You will eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth as though they were rams, lambs, goats, and bulls—all the fattened animals of Bashan. ¹⁹ At the sacrifice I am preparing, you will eat fat until you are gorged and drink blood until you are drunk. ²⁰ And at My table you will eat your fill of horses and riders, of mighty men and warriors of every kind,’ declares the Lord GOD.

¹⁶ And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

¹⁷ Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, ¹⁸ so that you may eat the flesh of kings and commanders and mighty men, of horses and riders, of everyone slave and free, small and great.”

⁸ You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it. ⁹ You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. ¹⁰ The mountains were covered by its shade, and the mighty cedars with its branches. ¹¹ It sent out its branches to the Sea, and its shoots toward the River. ¹² Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit? ¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it. ¹⁴ Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine— ¹⁵ the root Your right hand has planted, the son You have raised up for Yourself. ¹⁶ Your vine has been cut down and burned; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.

¹ I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ² He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! ³ “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. ⁴ What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit? ⁵ Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. ⁶ I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.” ⁷ For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.

²⁸ So I will disgrace the princes of your sanctuary, and I will devote Jacob to destruction and Israel to reproach.”

¹⁸ For a short while Your people possessed Your holy place, but our enemies have trampled Your sanctuary.

¹⁹ Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

³ Shepherds and their flocks will come against her; they will pitch their tents all around her, each tending his own portion:

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD.

⁹ behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

³ Then all the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-sarsekim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

¹⁰ The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly. ¹¹ All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.

⁹ Then He proceeded to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to some tenants, and went away for a long time. ¹⁰ At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat the servant and sent him away empty-handed. ¹¹ So he sent another servant, but they beat him and treated him shamefully, sending him away empty-handed. ¹² Then he sent a third, but they wounded him and threw him out. ¹³ ‘What shall I do?’ asked the owner of the vineyard. ‘I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him when they see him.’ ¹⁴ But when the tenants saw the son, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ¹⁵ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶ He will come and kill those tenants, and will give the vineyard to others.” And when the people heard this, they said, “May such a thing never happen!”

¹⁴ So make up your mind not to worry beforehand how to defend yourselves.

² But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months.

² It is better to enter a house of mourning than a house of feasting, since death is the end of every man, and the living should take this to heart.

²⁵ So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

¹ The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are swept away, while no one considers that the righteous are guided from the presence of evil.

⁸ Be forewarned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitant.”

¹¹ “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

²² Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

²⁵ Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

⁴ How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.” ⁵ “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? ⁶ Even your brothers—your own father’s household—even they have betrayed you; even they have cried aloud against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you. ⁷ I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the love of My life into the hands of her enemies. ⁸ My inheritance has become to Me like a lion in the forest. She has roared against Me; therefore I hate her.

⁸ I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

¹ How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave. ² She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. ³ Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress. ⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish. ⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.

⁵ “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

² If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to honor My name,” says the LORD of Hosts, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already begun to curse them, because you are not taking it to heart.

³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.

⁶ The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat—with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

²¹ “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

¹⁵ For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. ¹⁶ For by fire and by His sword, the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the LORD.

² “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A searing wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward the daughter of My people, but not to winnow or to sift; ¹² a wind too strong for that comes from Me. Now I also pronounce judgments against them.” ¹³ Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined! ¹⁴ Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you? ¹⁵ For a voice resounds from Dan, proclaiming disaster from the hills of Ephraim.

¹⁹ For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’” ²⁰ Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament. ²¹ For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

² If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

¹⁷ Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

⁶ ‘Alas, O sword of the LORD, how long until you rest? Return to your sheath; cease and be still!’

² There is no longer praise for Moab; in Heshbon they devise evil against her: ‘Come, let us cut her off from nationhood.’ You too, O people of Madmen, will be silenced; the sword will pursue you.

² When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast,

⁴ Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

¹² “You too, O Cushites, will be slain by My sword.”

²¹ For at that time there will be great tribulation, unmatched from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again. ²² If those days had not been cut short, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.

⁴ Then another horse went forth. It was bright red, and its rider was granted permission to take away peace from the earth and to make men slay one another. And he was given a great sword.

¹⁶ And He has a name written on His robe and on His thigh: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. ¹⁷ Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, ¹⁸ so that you may eat the flesh of kings and commanders and mighty men, of horses and riders, of everyone slave and free, small and great.” ¹⁹ Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies assembled to wage war against the One seated on the horse, and against His army. ²⁰ But the beast was captured along with the false prophet, who on its behalf had performed signs deceiving those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. Both the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. ²¹ And the rest were killed with the sword that proceeded from the mouth of the One seated on the horse. And all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

¹⁶ then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.

¹ “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. ² They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade. ³ But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace. ⁴ For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, ⁵ everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.” ⁶ This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD. ² Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers. ³ But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.

² Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods.

²³ Surely deception comes from the hills, and commotion from the mountains. Surely the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God. ²⁴ From our youth, that shameful god has consumed what our fathers have worked for—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. ²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”

²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the LORD, before His fierce anger.

³⁷ The peaceful meadows have been silenced because of the LORD’s burning anger. ³⁸ He has left His den like a lion, for their land has been made a desolation by the sword of the oppressor, and because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

¹⁵ You will sow but not reap; you will press olives but not anoint yourselves with oil; you will tread grapes but not drink the wine.

¹³ Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?

⁶ You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”

¹⁶ from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty. ¹⁷ I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.

²¹ What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.

³ then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.

¹⁵ “Do not touch My anointed ones! Do no harm to My prophets!”

⁴⁷ Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name, that we may glory in Your praise.

¹¹ On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. ¹² He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the adversaries of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will no longer envy Judah, nor will Judah harass Ephraim. ¹⁴ They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. ¹⁵ The LORD will devote to destruction the gulf of the Sea of Egypt; with a scorching wind He will sweep His hand over the Euphrates. He will split it into seven streams for men to cross with dry sandals. ¹⁶ There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

³ Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her found themselves guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD.

¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance.

³⁷ I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.

¹ Concerning Moab, this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Woe to Nebo, for it will be devastated. Kiriathaim will be captured and disgraced; the fortress will be shattered and dismantled.

¹ Concerning the Ammonites, this is what the LORD says: “Has Israel no sons? Is he without heir? Why then has Milcom taken possession of Gad? Why have his people settled in their cities?

⁷ Concerning Edom, this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Is there no longer wisdom in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom decayed?

⁹ For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed. ¹⁰ Chaldea will be plundered; all who plunder her will have their fill,” declares the LORD. ¹¹ “Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions, ¹² your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. ¹³ Because of the wrath of the LORD, she will not be inhabited; she will become completely desolate. All who pass through Babylon will be horrified and will hiss at all her wounds. ¹⁴ Line up in formation around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her! Spare no arrows! For she has sinned against the LORD. ¹⁵ Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her. ¹⁶ Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land. ¹⁷ Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

³³ For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.” ³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out. ³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

¹ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites and prophesy against them. ³ Tell the Ammonites to hear the word of the Lord GOD, for this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you exclaimed, “Aha!” when My sanctuary was profaned, when the land of Israel was laid waste, and when the house of Judah went into exile, ⁴ therefore I will indeed give you as a possession to the people of the East. They will set up their camps and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels, and Ammon a resting place for sheep. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁶ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt, ⁷ therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁸ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Moab and Seir said, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations,” ⁹ therefore I will indeed expose the flank of Moab beginning with its frontier cities—Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim—the glory of the land. ¹⁰ I will give it along with the Ammonites as a possession to the people of the East, so that the Ammonites will no longer be remembered among the nations. ¹¹ So I will execute judgments on Moab, and they will know that I am the LORD.’ ¹² This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt, ¹³ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword. ¹⁴ I will take My vengeance on Edom by the hand of My people Israel, and they will deal with Edom according to My anger and wrath. Then they will know My vengeance, declares the Lord GOD.’ ¹⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because the Philistines acted in vengeance, taking vengeance with malice of soul to destroy Judah with ancient hostility, ¹⁶ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the remnant along the coast. ¹⁷ I will execute great vengeance against them with furious reproof. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I lay My vengeance upon them.’”

²⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered, I will show Myself holy among them in the sight of the nations. Then they will dwell in their own land, which I have given to My servant Jacob.

¹² As a shepherd looks for his scattered sheep when he is among the flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. ¹³ I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the settlements of the land.

¹ Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it, ³ and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Mount Seir. I will stretch out My hand against you and make you a desolate waste. ⁴ I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD. ⁵ Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment, ⁶ therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you. ⁷ I will make Mount Seir a desolate waste and will cut off from it those who come and go. ⁸ I will fill its mountains with the slain; those killed by the sword will fall on your hills, in your valleys, and in all your ravines. ⁹ I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD. ¹⁰ Because you have said, ‘These two nations and countries will be ours, and we will possess them,’ even though the LORD was there, ¹¹ therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will treat you according to the anger and jealousy you showed in your hatred against them, and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you. ¹² Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’ ¹³ You boasted against Me with your mouth and multiplied your words against Me. I heard it Myself! ¹⁴ This is what the Lord GOD says: While the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. ¹⁵ As you rejoiced when the inheritance of the house of Israel became desolate, so will I do to you. You will become a desolation, O Mount Seir, and so will all of Edom. Then they will know that I am the LORD.

²⁴ For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

²¹ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will take the Israelites out of the nations to which they have gone, and I will gather them from all around and bring them into their own land.

²⁷ When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them out of the lands of their enemies, I will show My holiness in them in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ Then they will know that I am the LORD their God, when I regather them to their own land, not leaving any of them behind after their exile among the nations.

¹¹ Then the people of Judah and of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel.

² He said: “The LORD roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.” ³ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron. ⁴ So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael to consume the citadels of Ben-hadad. ⁵ I will break down the gates of Damascus; I will cut off the ruler of the Valley of Aven and the one who wields the scepter in Beth-eden. The people of Aram will be exiled to Kir,” says the LORD. ⁶ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they exiled a whole population, delivering them up to Edom. ⁷ So I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza, to consume its citadels. ⁸ I will cut off the ruler of Ashdod and the one who wields the scepter in Ashkelon. I will turn My hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord GOD. ⁹ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they delivered up a whole congregation of exiles to Edom and broke a covenant of brotherhood. ¹⁰ So I will send fire upon the walls of Tyre to consume its citadels.” ¹¹ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly. ¹² So I will send fire upon Teman to consume the citadels of Bozrah.” ¹³ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their territory. ¹⁴ So I will kindle a fire in the walls of Rabbah to consume its citadels amid war cries on the day of battle and a violent wind on the day of tempest. ¹⁵ Their king will go into exile—he and his princes together,” says the LORD.

¹⁴ I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. ¹⁵ I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God.

¹⁰ Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever. ¹¹ On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them. ¹² But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their distress. ¹³ You should not enter the gate of My people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over their affliction in the day of their disaster, nor loot their wealth in the day of their disaster. ¹⁴ Nor should you stand at the crossroads to cut off their fugitives, nor deliver up their survivors in the day of their distress. ¹⁵ For the Day of the LORD is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head. ¹⁶ For as you drank on My holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down; they will be as if they had never existed.

⁸ “I have heard the reproach of Moab and the insults of the Ammonites, who have taunted My people and threatened their borders. ⁹ Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.” ¹⁰ This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁹ Behold, at that time, I will deal with all who afflict you. I will save the lame and gather the scattered; and I will appoint praise and fame for the disgraced throughout the earth. ²⁰ At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the LORD.

¹⁵ but I am fiercely angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was a little angry, but they have added to the calamity.’

⁸ For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “After His Glory has sent Me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye—

⁶ I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them, and they will be as though I had not rejected them. For I am the LORD their God, and I will answer them. ⁷ Ephraim will be like a mighty man, and their hearts will be glad as with wine. Their children will see it and be joyful; their hearts will rejoice in the LORD. ⁸ I will whistle for them to gather, for I have redeemed them; and they will be as numerous as they once were. ⁹ Though I sow them among the nations, they will remember Me in distant lands; they and their children will live and return. ¹⁰ I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to Gilead and Lebanon until no more room is found for them. ¹¹ They will pass through the sea of distress and strike the waves of the sea; all the depths of the Nile will dry up. The pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will depart. ¹² I will strengthen them in the LORD, and in His name they will walk,” declares the LORD.

² “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. Judah will be besieged, as well as Jerusalem. ³ On that day, when all the nations of the earth gather against her, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will be severely injured. ⁴ On that day, declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic, and every rider with madness. I will keep a watchful eye on the house of Judah, but I will strike with blindness all the horses of the nations.

¹⁸ We will not return to our homes until every Israelite has taken possession of his inheritance.

²⁰ until the LORD gives rest to your brothers as He has to you, and they too have taken possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving them across the Jordan. Then each of you may return to the possession I have given you.”

¹⁷ And at the end of seventy years, the LORD will restore Tyre. Then she will return to hire as a prostitute and sell herself to all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. ¹⁸ Yet her profits and wages will be set apart to the LORD; they will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothing.

⁴⁷ Yet in the latter days I will restore Moab from captivity,” declares the LORD. Here ends the judgment on Moab.

⁶ Yet afterward I will restore the Ammonites from captivity,” declares the LORD.

³⁹ “Yet in the last days, I will restore Elam from captivity,” declares the LORD.

¹⁴ I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

²⁰ You are to fear the LORD your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. ²¹ He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen.

⁷ So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them.

³⁵ but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. ³⁶ They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

⁸ If you do not know, O fairest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and graze your young goats near the tents of the shepherds.

¹⁸ For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets which roll upward in billows of smoke. ¹⁹ By the wrath of the LORD of Hosts the land is scorched, and the people are fuel for the fire. No man even spares his brother. ²⁰ They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring. ²¹ Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh; together they turn against Judah. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

²³ In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. ²⁴ In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing upon the earth. ²⁵ The LORD of Hosts will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”

²³ By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

⁶ He says: “It is not enough for You to be My Servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the protected ones of Israel. I will also make You a light for the nations, to bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.”

⁵ I will give them, in My house and within My walls, a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. ⁶ And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD to minister to Him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be His servants—all who keep the Sabbath without profaning it and who hold fast to My covenant—

¹⁶ Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth, and whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. For the former troubles will be forgotten and hidden from My sight.

¹⁷ At that time Jerusalem will be called The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

² and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.”

² Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ they are swearing falsely.”

⁵ those who bow on the rooftops to worship the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear by the LORD but also swear by Milcom,

¹¹ “On that day many nations will join themselves to the LORD, and they will become My people. I will dwell among you, and you will know that the LORD of Hosts has sent Me to you.

¹⁷ Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,

¹¹ It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.”

⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

¹⁹ Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone. ²¹ In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God in His Spirit.

⁴ As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”

⁸ Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth Your possession. ⁹ You will break them with an iron scepter; You will shatter them like pottery.” ¹⁰ Therefore be wise, O kings; be admonished, O judges of the earth. ¹¹ Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. ¹² Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your rebellion, when His wrath ignites in an instant. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.

¹² For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly destroyed.

¹⁴ This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them. ¹⁵ But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land. ¹⁶ And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people. ¹⁷ But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation; I will uproot it and destroy it, declares the LORD.”

⁷ At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.

²⁸ Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, to demolish, destroy, and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.

¹² But it was uprooted in fury, cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were stripped off and they withered; the fire consumed them.

⁴ The first beast was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and given the mind of a man. ⁵ Suddenly another beast appeared, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. So it was told, ‘Get up and gorge yourself on flesh!’ ⁶ Next, as I watched, another beast appeared. It was like a leopard, and on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. ⁷ After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying—dreadful and extremely strong—with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns. ⁸ While I was contemplating the horns, suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like those of a man and a mouth that spoke words of arrogance.

⁴ But as soon as he is established, his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out toward the four winds of heaven. It will not go to his descendants, nor will it have the authority with which he ruled, because his kingdom will be uprooted and given to others.

¹⁶ Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁷ And should any of the families of the earth not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, then the rain will not fall on them. ¹⁸ And if the people of Egypt will not go up and enter in, then the rain will not fall on them; this will be the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁹ This will be the punishment of Egypt and of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

²⁷ And these enemies of mine who were unwilling for me to rule over them, bring them here and slay them in front of me.’”

⁸ in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁶ For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.” ⁷ To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who are disobedient, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” ⁸ and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word—and to this they were appointed.