בָּעַר

As fire consumes a forest, as a flame sets the mountains ablaze,

How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath keep burning like fire?

Take notice, O senseless among the people! O fools, when will you be wise?

Then fire blazed through their company; flames consumed the wicked.

The strong man will become tinder and his work will be a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the flames.

The LORD brings this charge against the elders and leaders of His people: “You have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses.

…when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains from the heart of Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire.

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.

And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”

For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets, which roll upward in billows of smoke.

And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.

The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?

Behold, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.

For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.

Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch.

Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering.

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.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

It serves as fuel for man. He takes some of it to warm himself, and he kindles a fire and bakes his bread. He also fashions it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who array yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and of the firebrands you have lit! This is what you will receive from My hand: You will lie down in a place of torment.

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep still, until her righteousness shines like a bright light, her salvation like a blazing torch.

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds.”

The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

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.

But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.

O house of David, this is what the LORD says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds.

Since it was the ninth month, the king was sitting in his winter quarters with a fire burning before him.

Therefore My wrath and anger poured out and burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so that they have become the desolate ruin they are today.

Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

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.

In the midst of the living creatures was the appearance of glowing coals of fire, or of torches. Fire moved back and forth between the living creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.

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.

Then all people will see that I, the LORD, have kindled it; it will not be quenched.”

I will pour out My anger upon you; I will breathe the fire of My fury against you; I will hand you over to brutal men, skilled in destruction.

Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out, kindle fires, and burn up the weapons—the bucklers and shields, the bows and arrows, the clubs and spears. For seven years they will use them for fuel.

They will not gather wood from the countryside or cut it from the forests, for they will use the weapons for fuel. They will loot those who looted them and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord GOD.

They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.

For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

“Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will reduce your chariots to cinders, and the sword will devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voices of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”