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| Photo by Jim Tracy |
1 Oh, how much evil will come to those who lay awake at night planning evil! And in the morning they get up and go do what they have planned.
2 They violently steal fields, and houses. They cheat people out of their property and inheritances.
3 "And so," says the I Am, "Look out! I will now pay your evil with evil. You won't be able to take the noose off your necks, and you won't be proud any more.
4 In that day your enemies will mock you by reapeating your song of mourning:
"We are ruined!
We are destroyed!
He took it all away!
He gave our land to heathens!"
5 And so you will not have any control of how your land is divided.
6 "Don't prophesy!" they will say to the prophets. "Don't say such things and disaster won't come."
7 O descendants of Jacob, is the I Am limited in power? Isn't this all His work? Don't I speak words of comfort to those who are righteous?
8 Yet My people have rose up against Me like an enemy. You even take the shirt off the back of those walking by, like soldiers stripping their captives.
9 You've evicted women from their houses, and steal children's land from them.
10 Get up and run away! This isn't your home anymore. You've polluted it, so it will destroy you!
11 You would prefer it if someone came to you lying about prosperity and leisure.
10 Get up and run away! This isn't your home anymore. You've polluted it, so it will destroy you!
11 You would prefer it if someone came to you lying about prosperity and leisure.
12 I will gather you up, O Jacob, all of you! I definitely will gather together the leftovers of Israel. I will round you up like the sheep of Bozrah, like the flock in the middle of their pen. There will be so many people it will be noisy again.
13 The (Messiah) will come to you. He has broken up the gate and led you out through it. Your king shall walk in front, led by the I Am.