Thematic Bible


Thematic Bible



I wish that my head were a well full of water and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people who have been killed. Verse ConceptsAffliction Day And NightFountainsEyes, Figurative UseBeing Earnest For IsraelNightSuffering, Emotional Aspects OfTearsMetaphorical SpringsMourning DeathFountains Used Figuratively

"Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil so that you may yet be delivered. How long will you continue to harbor up wicked schemes within you? For messengers are coming, heralding disaster, from the city of Dan and from the hills of Ephraim. They are saying, 'Announce to the surrounding nations, "The enemy is coming!" Proclaim this message to Jerusalem: "Those who besiege cities are coming from a distant land. They are ready to raise the battle cry against the towns in Judah."' read more.
They will surround Jerusalem like men guarding a field because they have rebelled against me," says the Lord. "The way you have lived and the things you have done will bring this on you. This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart."

Then I said, "There is no cure for my grief! I am sick at heart! I hear my dear people crying out throughout the length and breadth of the land. They are crying, 'Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King no longer there?'" The Lord answers, "Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?" "They cry, 'Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over, and still we have not been delivered.' read more.
My heart is crushed because my dear people are being crushed. I go about crying and grieving. I am overwhelmed with dismay.

And I cried out, "We are doomed! Our wound is severe! We once thought, 'This is only an illness. And we will be able to bear it!' But our tents have been destroyed. The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. Our children are gone and are not coming back. There is no survivor to put our tents back up, no one left to hang their tent curtains in place. For our leaders are stupid. They have not sought the Lord's advice. So they do not act wisely, and the people they are responsible for have all been scattered. read more.
Listen! News is coming even now. The rumble of a great army is heard approaching from a land in the north. It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.

Just as it is written in the law of Moses, so all this calamity has come on us. Still we have not tried to pacify the LORD our God by turning back from our sin and by seeking wisdom from your reliable moral standards. Verse ConceptsConversion, nature ofComplacencyPrayerlessnessWritten In The LawSeeking The Favour Of Godclosure

and those who turn their backs on the Lord and do not want the Lord's help or guidance." Verse ConceptsComplacencyIndifferenceNot Enquiring Of GodNot Seeking GodguidanceHelping Those In Needfollowing

All those who behave wickedly do not understand -- those who devour my people as if they were eating bread, and do not call out to God. Verse ConceptsEating, Metaphorical UseCalling upon GodPrayer, Practicalities OfCharacter Of WickedEvildoersNot PrayingThose Who Were Ignorant


You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; Verse ConceptsAmbition, Warnings RegardingPrayer, Practicalities OfPrayerlessnessCovetousness, Nature ofEvil DesiresReady To KillFighting One Anothergrandmas

"But you did not call for me, O Jacob; you did not long for me, O Israel. Verse ConceptsComplacencyPrayerlessnessNot PrayingWeary Of Godtired


All of them are blazing like an oven; they devour their rulers. All of their kings fall -- and none of them call on me! Verse ConceptsComplacencyHeatHot ThingsAttitudes Towards KingsNot Praying


God's Spirit energized Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood up before the people and said to them, "This is what God says: 'Why are you violating the commands of the Lord? You will not be prosperous! Because you have rejected the Lord, he has rejected you!'" Verse ConceptsAbandonmentevil, believers' responses toImpenitence, Results OfVictory, As An Act Of GodThe Spirit Of God


For your husband is the one who made you -- the Lord who commands armies is his name. He is your protector, the Holy One of Israel. He is called "God of the entire earth." "Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected," says your God. "For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. read more.
In a burst of anger I rejected you momentarily, but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you," says your protector, the Lord. "As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah's time, when I vowed that the waters of Noah's flood would never again cover the earth. In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you. Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced," says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you. "O afflicted one, driven away, and unconsoled! Look, I am about to set your stones in antimony and I lay your foundation with lapis-lazuli. I will make your pinnacles out of gems, your gates out of beryl, and your outer wall out of beautiful stones. All your children will be followers of the Lord, and your children will enjoy great prosperity. You will be reestablished when I vindicate you. You will not experience oppression; indeed, you will not be afraid. You will not be terrified, for nothing frightening will come near you. If anyone dares to challenge you, it will not be my doing! Whoever tries to challenge you will be defeated. Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. I create the destroyer so he might devastate. No weapon forged to be used against you will succeed; you will refute everyone who tries to accuse you. This is what the Lord will do for his servants -- I will vindicate them," says the Lord.

"When that time comes," says the Lord, "the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together. They will come back with tears of repentance as they seek the Lord their God. They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten. "My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have allow them to go astray. They have wandered around in the mountains. They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. They have forgotten their resting place.

Indeed, I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not take heed to the sheep headed to slaughter, will not seek the scattered, and will not heal the injured. Moreover, he will not nourish the one that is healthy but instead will eat the meat of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves. Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! May a sword fall on his arm and his right eye! May his arm wither completely away, and his right eye become completely blind!"

The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.

The Lord says, "The leaders of my people are sure to be judged. They were supposed to watch over my people like shepherds watch over their sheep. But they are causing my people to be destroyed and scattered. So the Lord God of Israel has this to say about the leaders who are ruling over his people: "You have caused my people to be dispersed and driven into exile. You have not taken care of them. So I will punish you for the evil that you have done. I, the Lord, affirm it! Then I myself will regather those of my people who are still alive from all the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their homeland. They will greatly increase in number. read more.
I will install rulers over them who will care for them. Then they will no longer need to fear or be terrified. None of them will turn up missing. I, the Lord, promise it!

The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them -- to the shepherds: 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the choice animals, but you do not feed the sheep! read more.
You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled over them. They were scattered because they had no shepherd, and they became food for every wild beast. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over the entire face of the earth with no one looking or searching for them. "'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep, Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand my sheep from their hand. I will no longer let them be shepherds; the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore. I will rescue my sheep from their mouth, so that they will no longer be food for them.


Many foreign rulers will ruin the land where I planted my people. They will trample all over my chosen land. They will turn my beautiful land into a desolate wasteland. They will lay it waste. It will lie parched and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. A destructive army will come marching over the hilltops in the desert. For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon against everyone from one end of the land to the other. No one will be safe.


In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a foot disease. Though his disease was severe, he did not seek the Lord, but only the doctors. Asa passed away in the forty-first year of his reign.